State Chief Minister Nitish Kumar hoisted the flag at the Gandhi Maidan in Patna on Thursday on the occasion of the 73rd Independence Day on India. Kumar spoke about topics like the liquor ban which was imposed by his government three years ago and said that it was a path-breaking initiative which really benefitted the society immensely.

"We enforced liquor ban on the demand of women which benefitted the society as people were taken away from the bottle and engaged in productive work. Over four crore people from the state joined in the movement supporting the liquor ban," he said. Kumar gave some statistics and said that World Health Organisation had published a report, according to which 30 lakh people died because of drinking alcohol in 2016 which was around 5 per cent of total deaths which were reported in that year.