Patna: For nearly two decades, Vijay Chaudhary of the Pasi community in Vaishali district spent the early hours of the morning scaling tall palm trees to retrieve sap that would eventually ferment into toddy. Selling roughly 10 bottles of ‘taadi’ a day for as little as Rs 5 to Rs 10 each, the work was as physically risky as it was financially stagnant. When Bihar enforced total prohibition in 2016, Vijay and 200 other tappers in his village, along with lakhs across the state, found their already precarious livelihood criminalised overnight, leaving many unable to provide even a single daily meal for their families.However, 10 years into the state’s dry era, a gradual shift is under way through two key rehabilitation efforts — the Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana (SJY) and the Mukhyamantri Neera Samvardhan Yojana. Facilitated by the JEEViKA rural network, these schemes aim to transition families from the illicit liquor trade into the formal economy by repurposing palm sap into Neera — a non-alcoholic health drink — and supporting alternative small businesses.The SJY, launched on Aug 5, 2018, specifically targets women from households earlier dependent on the liquor or toddy trade. JEEViKA officials describe it as a female-driven initiative designed to foster financial independence through skill training and direct financial aid ranging from Rs 60,000 to Rs 2 lakh over two years. To date, around Rs 1,300 crore has been disbursed to over two lakh women, many of whom have set up grocery stores, street food stalls or poultry farms.Sarita Devi, a resident of Jandaha village in Vaishali, reflects this transition. After her husband was jailed for a year for illegally selling liquor, she joined the SJY in 2020. Today, she earns up to Rs 2,000 daily from her grocery shop, where her husband now assists her. For Sarita, the shift has meant moving from a life with barely a roof over her head to being able to afford her children’s education. Official data shows 2021 as the peak year for enrolments with Gaya and Madhubani emerging as districts with the highest participation.Running parallel is the Mukhyamantri Neera Samvardhan Yojana, launched on April 30, 2025, to formalise the work of toddy tappers. By identifying and tagging palm trees in high-density districts such as Nalanda, Gaya and Vaishali, the state has brought both tappers and tree owners into a regulated network. Each owner can have up to 10 trees, while a tapper can extract around 30 litres per day, with each tree yielding an average of three litres of neera daily. Tapping licences are issued by the prohibition, excise and registration department following JEEViKA verification and are renewed annually, with around 9,000 licences granted in 2025 alone, according to data from the JEEViKA unit.To discourage the illegal sale of fermented toddy and promote neera, the govt has introduced structured incentives – tappers receive Rs 8 per litre of neera, while tree owners receive Rs 3 per litre. In 2025, Rs 7-8 crore was disbursed as incentives, and around two crore litres of neera was tapped and sold. Vinay Kumar Rai, director of enterprises, BRLPS (JEEVIKA), explained the intent behind the model. “We create awareness and keep a check so that as soon as the neera ferments into ‘taadi’, it is destroyed and does not reach the market,” Rai said. He added the aim is to create a system where tappers are compensated for tapping and ownership, reducing incentives to revert to the illegal trade, while also promoting neera as a health drink.Yet, despite these structural gains, the transition remains a race against time and temperature. Neera must be extracted between 3am and 5am; once the sun rises, the heat triggers fermentation, turning the sap into liquor within half an hour. There are around 15-20 neera shops in Patna and up to 250 permanent outlets across the state. After the peak season between April and July, shopkeepers often sell jaggery, a byproduct of the sap.Jogeshwar, who runs a neera shop in Patna after years in the toddy trade, points to both opportunity and constraint. “On a good day, I can sell up to 100 glasses of neera,” he said. However, he underlined a critical infrastructure gap: most shops lack refrigeration. Without adequate cooling, the product spoils quickly, and although sellers are instructed to destroy fermented sap, he acknowledged that in some regions, unsold batches are still diverted to the black market at higher prices.While the SJY has recorded considerable success in helping women establish stable alternative livelihoods, the neera initiative is still finding its footing, grappling with the challenges of a highly perishable product and a deeply entrenched traditional economy.
