The Kerala government's decision to brand toddy under the new liquor policy begets the question of whether good quality toddy is available in Kerala. As per statistics, the state does not produce as much toddy as it consumes in a day! 

To meet the demand, toddy is often made by mixing arrack with various types of pastes in many places. 

According to the rule book, each toddy shop should have at least 50 coconut trees and five tappers under it. On paper, there are about 25,000 toddy tappers.  While in reality, they are less than 15,000 in number.

Per day around 2-3 liters of toddy can be procured from a single coconut tree and toddy palms. This may go up to 10 liters for elephant palms. The number of coconut trees tapped is 2,78,000. 2100 toddy palms and 23,690 elephant palms are also tapped. 

If tapped trees give 3 litres per day, then 9,11,370 litres of toddy will be available for sale. However, 4,880 licensed shops sell about 12 lakh litres.