INDIA: Marriages will never be the lavish, extravagant affairs again in India's northern Jammu and Kashmir state following yesterday's ordinance that restricts the amount of food served at wedding feasts and the number of guests invited to them.
Under the new Essential Commodities Act, the state government has permitted the bride's family, which customarily hosts the marriage ceremony and the feasting that follows, to serve just 45 kg each of rice and meat for the celebratory wedding meal or face imprisonment of up to three years. Sixty kg of the same fare is permissible where two sisters are married off simultaneously.
State minister for public distribution and consumer affairs Mr Taj Mohiuddin said the ordinance was being invoked following large scale wastage at wedding feasts.
This in turn had adversely affected the "food ratio" across Kashmir, leading to an unprecedented price rise of essential commodities, he declared in the state's summer capital, Srinagar.
A team of consumer department officers, accompanied by the police, would monitor all weddings to ensure compliance with the restrictive order Mohiuddin said. "It's a good measure but implementing any such law in the state is impossible," Mr Arun Gupta, a businessman, said.
It merely provides another avenue for corruption, defeating the purpose for which the law was being invoked, he added.
According to the ordinance, the menu for each wedding meal would require prior approval by the Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs ministry and could not exceed five dishes, including rice and meat that is the staple diet of all Kashmiris.
This ends the practice of serving sumptuous spreads that invariably had tables groaning with Kashmiri food, which is widely celebrated as amongst the most esoteric and elaborate of Indian cuisines. Some Kashmiri meat dishes require at least two days of slow cooking on low fires.
The new ordinance also allows the bride's family to invite only 75 wedding guests while a groom can ask only 50.