After over two month of closure due to COVID-19 induced lockdown, liquor shops reopened in Kerala on Thursday (May 28) 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 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.
“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 PTI.
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.