Tipplers who find it embarrassing to stand in the serpentine queues on Kerala’s exposed roadsides to buy their liquor can now take heart. The Kerala State Cooperative Consumers’ Federation (Consumerfed) is about to start selling Indian made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) online, ahead of Onam.
Those who have no access to the Internet can even order their bottles over phone.
The State’s apex consumer cooperative runs a chain of 36 hard liquor and three beer and wine shops across Kerala. Besides their regular liquor counters, the shops will now open special counters for online or telephone customers.
But for now, patrons need to make physical payments because Consumerfed’s online payment portal launch is still some six months away. Those who wish may also book their spirits over phone. All who book will get a token number, which can be used to make the payment and collect the liquor from the special counters.
All brands of liquor, including the premium ones, will be available and, for good measure, Consumerfed will also add 59 more varieties in its inventory, its managing director M. Ramanunny told The Hindu .
The idea of selling liquor online takes the running feud between anti-liquor advocates and the other side, to another level. Kerala famously accounts for about 14 per cent liquor consumption in India, but volumes have been going marginally down. Liquor sales stood at 201 lakh cases worth Rs.11,577 crore during 2015-16, down from 220 lakh cases worth Rs.10,013 crore during the previous year. Gross sales during the first three months of this year were around Rs.4,000 crore .
Though Consumerfed sources say they foresee no hindrances to the online liquor sale move, Excise Minister T.P. Ramakrishnan said the government is yet to grant its formal approval for online liquor sale, and it has yet to receive a formal application for it.
Consumerfed feels that online liquor sale will solve the problem of ‘gentlemen’ having to stand in queues to buy their drink.
“There are a lot of people who are embarrassed to be seen queuing up before liquor shops in full public view,” said Mr. Ramanunny.
These queues had drastically lengthened with the closure of bars in all hotels rated below five-stars, as ordered by the erstwhile UDF government early last year. The decision brought down the shutters on around 730 bars, many of which then populated the around 800 beer and wine parlours in the State, (besides the around 30 bars in as many five-star hotels, which alone serve hard liquor.)
The closure of bars was complemented by shutting down around 60 of the more than 370 retail liquor outlets operated by the Kerala State Beverages Corporation and Consumerfed.
There is, however, a good deal of pressure now on the new LDF government to reconsider the approach to liquor, with tourism revenue plummeting in the State.
Tourism Minister A. C. Moideen has vigorously waded into the debate, demanding the reopening of liquor shops in tourism spots that were closed.
But Consumerfed’s move has riled anti-liquor activists, besides KPCC president V.M. Sudheeran who virtually helmed the anti-liquor push of the last Congress-led government. Mr. Sudheeran has strongly condemned the move, which he says is disastrous.
Sections of the Church are not amused, either. “Consumerfed is closing down its provision shops day by day, and instead facilitating the sale of more liquor,” observed Charlie Paul, secretary, Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council’s prohibition committee.
Curiously, as far back as in 19th century, a Christian missionary, Samuel Meteer, had chronicled the local propensity to imbibe what he called ‘ardent spirits,’ at least in southern Kerala.
“The truth is that there is not a great amount of intemperance among the population of Travancore, and there is not much visible drunkenness, as in some European towns. Still there is more than formerly, and sufficient cause appears for anxiety,” he wrote in his work, Native Life in Travancore.
