The move means that not even eggs can be sold within the municipal limits of the two towns.

Since then, five more towns of the Mathura district have been officially conferred the holy site status. These are nagar panchayats of Baldev, Govardhan, Gokul, Nandgaon and Radha Kund, all historically and culturally associated with Krishna.

The government statement declaring the ban, read, "The nagar panchayat areas of Govardhan, Radhakund, Nandgaon, Gokul and Baldev are playing grounds of Lord Krishna, his elder brother Balram and Radha Rani. The religious affairs department had declared these places as holy sites on March 22, 2018.... Keeping in view the religious importance of these places, liquor has been prohibited there."

The statement said that there were 32 liquor shops in the five nagar panchayats and all of these would be shifted to minimise the loss of excise, which is Rs 11 crore.

However, the ban in these five towns is enforced only on the sale and consumption of liquor. So far, it's not been extended to meat.

Last year, UP’s Religious Affairs Minister, Lakshmi Narayan Chaudhary, told a newspaper that declaring Mathura panchayat as a holy site is encountering some "problems" but that it will "happen in due course".

But media reports have speculated that the reason could be that Mathura, unlike Vrindavan and Barsana, have considerable Muslim populations that are involved in the meat business.