Liquor sale resumes in Kerala after two months

After over two month of closure due to COVID-19 induced lockdown, liquor shops reopened in Kerala on Thursday with a new mobile application being used to regulate the crowd.

State-run liquor outlets, bars as well as beer and wine shops have been closed since March 24, when the Centre declared a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus,

Kerala State Beverages (Manufacturing & Marketing) Corporation Ltd (BEVCO) Managing Director G Sparjan Kumar said traffic on Google Playstore to download the app (BevQ) was heavy and resulted in many customers failing to make the booking.

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"At least 3.5 lakh people have downloaded the application which was launched yesterday. At least 2.5 lakh e-tokens have been issued for today. Traffic was heavy to download the application resulting in delay for booking the slot for many," Kumar told P T I.

To purchase liquor, one needs to book a slot in the virtual queue through the BevQ app.

Using the mobile app, people will receive an e-token to book the time slot to visit the nearest outlet and this would reduce the crowds seen earlier, state excise minister T P Ramakrishnan had said on Wednesday.

Liquor sales commenced at the 301-state-run outlets and 576 bar hotels in the state and as a time slot has been allotted to each customer, crowd was not seen at any shop.