Gujarat's claim of sobriety is a lucrative business model for liquor smugglers in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. The Reporters’ Collective in its latest investigates the organised business of smuggling alcohol into Gujarat from Madhya Pradesh.

It led us to Madhya Pradesh’s Malwa region that has been diligently meeting the alcohol requirements of its neighbour for the last three decades.

Over the years, Malwa has got the economics of smuggling right. It has four of the state’s 11 distilleries that produce over 43% of the total spirit and three out of four breweries, two border districts and an impoverished population that offers foot soldiers.

From the liquor manufacturers' warehouses in Madhya Pradesh to the transport networks funnelling it into Gujarat, we delved into the smuggling operations, uncovering the trade, its secrets and the faltering efforts of law enforcement to curb the flow of alcohol.

We travelled to border districts that serve as a key gateway for smuggling liquor into the dry state. And further deep into the border villages through which convoys of vehicles smuggling liquor burst through every day to Gujarat’s Dahod. Met the tribal families whom the bootleggers pay ₹10,000 to ₹15,000 a month to use their fields or empty spaces for storing smuggled liquor.

We investigated the state’s role in fuelling the smuggling racket that costs the exchequer over ₹1000 crore annually. And found that part of the blame lies with the state’s liquor policies that were shaped by changing political regimes and political agendas. The liquor policy over the years reflects a cyclical shift between monopolistic one district-one contractor model and fragmented one shop-one contractor policy.

Read the report by Kashif Kakvi, the TRC Investigative Reporting Fellowship Special Grantee in round two.