Ethics - Governance Case Study - How IPS officer used soft policing to crack down illegal hooch distilleries in Solapur

Solapur in Maharashtra is one the primary supplier of hooch to at least nine districts in the state, including Beed, Osmanabad, and others along the Maharashtra-Karnataka border.

Tejaswi Satpute, a 2012-batch IPS officer was posted in Solapur (Rural) as Superintendent of Police in October 2020 after spending 2 weeks in the area, she had identified its darkest spot: illicit liquor

In September 2021, Satpute launched ‘Operation Parivartan’, a four-point action plan that combined soft policing methods such as counselling with a concerted crackdown on the haath bhattis or the hand-operated illicit liquor distilleries in the police district.

There were 70 spots that had turned into no-go areas for police teams, who would often be attacked by local villagers involved in the manufacture of hooch, mostly members of the Banjara community.

It would take a team of at least 150-200 officers to conduct a raid.

Hence, these raids were carried out once every few months

However, Satpute knew frequent raids were the answer but these had to be done scientifically.

A deep-dive into the production process of hooch revealed that it involved a 72-hour cycle.

Hence, they decided that there should be raids every three days to hit their production cycle.

It was found that they were lacking alternatives employment opportunities

Police also started Parivartan Udyog, as part of which for nearly 45 days, women were trained to operate sewing machines.

A year later, nearly 80 per cent of the haath-bhattis in Solapur (Rural) have shut down and over 650 families involved in the trade have been rehabilitated.

Satpute was awarded the FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry) Smart Policing Special Jury Award for Operation Parivartan