Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 1 (IANS): After making merry over the Christmas festival (December 24-25) when they gulped down beer and liquor worth Rs 152.06 crore, tipplers in Kerala went a step further on New Year's Eve, when they forked out Rs 108 crore for their preferred drinks.

Compared to the 2024 New Year's Eve, sales this time went up by Rs 13 crore, making it an all-time high.

These figures were released by the Kerala State Beverages Corporation ( KSBC), the sole wholesaler of alcoholic drinks in the state.

The KSBC outlet at Ravipuram in Kochi recorded the highest sales on New Year's Eve.

Liquor is sold through 277 retail outlets owned by the Corporation, while the state-backed cooperative organisation Consumerfed also has 39 retail outlets.

On December 24, the sales were Rs 97.42 crore, while on Christmas day, they were Rs 54.64 crore.

There has been a sizeable increase in sales, compared to the 2023 Christmas period when the sales figure was Rs 122.14 crore.

Incidentally with the sales peaking and with just one more quarter left for the present fiscal to end, it is certain to better the sales of the previous fiscal which saw the sale of liquor and beer touching Rs 19,088.68 crore, up from Rs 18,510.98 crore in 2022-23.

Over the years. the Kerala state exchequer is kept alive by the taxes collected through the sale of beer and liquor. In the last fiscal, this generated a staggering Rs 16,609.63 crore, up from Rs 16,189.55 crore in 2022-23.

The profile of liquor consumers in Kerala reveals that around 32.9 lakh people out of the 3.34 crore population in the state consume liquor, which includes 29.8 lakh men and 3.1 lakh women. Around five lakh people consume liquor on a daily basis. Of this, as many as 83,851 people, including 1,043 women, are addicted to alcohol.