The resumption of liquor sale will not be immediate. Excise officials said the government required time to amend the rules to legalise the sale of alcohol as takeaways through bars and beer parlours.
They fixed Friday as a tentative date to resume liquor sales, but warned that the date could be postponed.
Moreover, the mobile phone application to enable the public to order liquor online and in advance is still on trial.
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Customers’ choice
The system empowers customers to choose their brand online, select the point of sale, and set a time and date for the purchase. The application would signal the time customers can collect their order from the point of purchase they had chosen earlier. It also has an e-payment option.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday lifted the ban which was in place for liquor sale since March 25.
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He said bars and beer and wine parlours could sell liquor as takeaways. So could exclusive clubs to their members.
Private clubs
Unlike clubs, bars and beer and wine parlours could not sell liquor independently.
They could only execute the order placed by customers on the mobile phone-based online order and virtual queue system application currently on trial by the Kerala State Beverages Corporation (Bevco). The clause has put a dampener on the willingness of bar hotels to resume liquor sales.
Low sales volume
Several bars have backed out anticipating low volume of sales. The bar licensees have baulked at incurring overhead expenses without a financially justifying scale of retail purchase. Moreover, bars can only charge the commercial rate fixed by Bevco and the government has restricted their profit margin to 20% of the warehouse cost of duty-paid liquor.
Illicit supply
The government, in an order, said the temporary ban on liquor had spawned illicit supply networks dominated by bootleggers who sold alcohol of dubious quality at an exaggerated rate.
The black market had given rise to criminal networks that profited from illicit distillation and spirit smuggling. Moreover, drug suppliers had stepped into the void created by the ban on legal alcohol.
The government has to strike a delicate balance between restoring the sale of legal alcohol and from preventing a surge in COVID-19 infections caused by overcrowding at Bevco outlets.
Liquor policy is a politically touchy subject. The government appeared to have risked the wrath of Church-backed prohibitionists and Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition by allowing the sale of liquor when the threat of new flare-ups loomed.
Moreover, the State stood to gain an additional revenue of at ₹2,000 crores annually by allowing liquor sale to resume. UDF convenor Benny Behanan has slammed the move.