Around 80 persons from Ranga Reddy district with severe behavioural disorder were admitted to the Government Institute of Mental Health (GIMH) after consuming adulterated toddy. They also showed withdrawal symptoms of adulterants. Mental health experts said that the patients were mainly suffering from withdrawal symptoms, after addictive chemicals were banned from toddy as per the de-adulteration laws of the excise department.
The chemicals were being added to ferment toddy. The GIMH gets about 10-15 cases of toddy poisoning daily and doctors say that some of the patients are victims of this poisoning, which has lead to severe mental and behavioural disorders. Unfortunately, there’s no check on illicit arrack and toddy shops in resulting in thousands of deaths and severe mental disorders. There are no full-fledged government rehab centres for the victims either.
Dr V. Pramod Kumar, superintendent of Government Institute of Mental Health and Nodal officer, National Mental Health programme, said, “Around 80 persons from RR district have been admitted in the last four days. After evaluation and treatment, some of them have been sent back. Most of them are suffering from withdrawal symptoms as the sedatives used to adulterate toddy in order to give a ‘kick’ such as diazepam, alprazolam and chloral hydrate have been banned by the Excise department.”
A patient, Lingam Murthy from Jeedimetla was admitted on Friday. His wife Sandhya said, “Cheap adulterated toddy is available everywhere for Rs 20-25. My husband is a habitual drinker and had consumed about three bottles on Thursday night. He started behaving boisterously soon after.” Ideally, toddy should be sold near the palm trees from which it is extracted. But nowadays, adulterated toddy is available in rural areas. Mostly, it is people from Telangana and places like Gulbarga who come for treatment, said the RMO of GIMH Dr T. Omprakash.