KAMALPUR, July 20 (TIWN): The popular rural smoking option bidi turned scarce here in the markets of North, Unakoti and Dhalai districts using the opportunity of the dilapidated condition of the national Highway.

The brands of bidi which occasionally got sold at 5 to 10 rupees a packet turned as high as 10 to 25 rupees. And the unscrupulous businessmen who got in enjoying the plight of the people by virtually imposing unbearable financial pressure remained at their happy land. Moreover, even amidst the crisis, the cross-border smuggling of bidi to Bangladesh not got stopped yet.

According to the sources, bidi remained a long practised rural smoking item easily available to economical poorer classes. And the state of Tripura occupies a significant place in bidi production and consumption.

According to the report of the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, 21.5% of the population in Tripura used to smoke bidi while only 7.3% found pleasure in smoking cigarettes. And among the bidi smokers 34.9% remained to be men and 7.9% remained to be women.  

Another survey report claimed that, Tripura provided full time job to 11, 523 persons and part time job to 108 persons in bidi production till 2010. And the bidi production provided 8% of the employment in the unorganized manufacturing sector in the state.

Now, it became evident that, the collapse of the National Highway surely hit the bidi market of the state severely. But, the production units of the state, which would be no less than 150 in the entire state, not ceased their production. And their products continued to reach the markets.

Still, some unscrupulous businessmen made the situation so worse that, a cry of bidi scarcity dominated the markets. And the illegal cross-border smuggling geared its pace.

In this context, a portion of businessmen got pocketing huge profit increasing the amount of black money. At the same time, the government got to loss huge amount of revenue.

Interestingly, when the officials and the cops got busy in conducting false raids against illegal liquors and contrabands with minimum success, then the bidi mafias continued their activities in broad day light. But, who would bother to look into it in this golden regime!