After police busted a rave in a swanky part of Mumbai last week, the city’s drinkers have woken up with an almighty legal hangover.

Authorities have decided to enforce a 63-year-old law that requires every adult above the age of 25 to own a permit for alcohol consumption.

According to the Bombay Prohibition Act, introduced in 1949, every drinker in Mumbai needs a government permit — 5 rupees for a daily licence and 1,000 rupees ($18) for a lifetime permit.

Once an individual acquires the permit, they can possess up to 12 units of liquor at any given time. The penalty for boozing without a licence will be a fine of 50,000 rupees or five years in jail, or both.

I have three problems with this plan.

One: if the police want people to drink sensibly, or to give up the bottle altogether, I doubt that a thousand rupees will act as enough of a deterrent.

Two: if it is meant to keep underage drinkers away, the law looks tough to enforce. Drunk drivers are easier to catch and fine than people enjoying a tipple in the privacy of their home.

Three: corruption is endemic at every level in Indian society. These permits will open a tempting new way for officers to harass drinkers for bribes, as they already do for anything from traffic violations to getting a passport.

And how will this licence work in practice? Will police ask Nandan Nilekani, the man in charge of rolling out India’s first ever unique identity card system, to add a person’s drinking status onto their personal data? And will Mumbai, the financial hub of India, give its many tourists and visiting businessmen an alcohol visa on arrival?