Govt. throws its weight behind BevQ

Excise Minister asks developers to make the mobile app glitch-free by June 2

The State government has ruled out allowing the direct sale of alcohol as demanded by bar hotel owners.

A meeting chaired by Excise Minister T.P. Ramakrishnan on Friday decided to push ahead with the sale of liquor via the app, BevQ, despite the teething troubles of the new system. The developers of the app have been given time till June 2 to make the system glitch-free. However, the public could continue to book time slots for purchasing liquor.

The developers reportedly told the meeting that the app could not process more than 4.5 lakh bookings. Large booking volumes, phishing and hacker attacks and poor connectivity had reportedly affected the efficiency of the application at the user’s end.

Liquor sale across the State was disrupted after BevQ went kaput denying access to many users trying to book time slots. “Initially, a message of ‘connection error’ was flashed and later when I eventually managed to get through there was this other message that slots can only be booked from 3.45 a.m. to 9 a.m,” said Arjun B., a private company executive.

Lower turnout

Jose Pradeep, treasurer, Association of Approved and Classified Hotels of Kerala, said the customer turnout was less than half of what it was on Thursday since only a few who booked the slots early in the morning seemed to have been issued tokens.

The Minister asked the firm to ensure that the application assigned buyers a bar or liquor store within 5 km of their PIN code.

“The app should have allowed users to choose their outlets based on availability of slots. There were many instances in which tokens were unused after the users were allotted slots in far away outlets,” said Davis Pathadan, working president, Federation of Kerala Hotels Association.

The random allocation of slots had the inherent flaw where customers looking for reasonably priced liquor brands ended up in premium hotels dealing only in high-end brands. The absence of QR Code scanners continued to plague the service at liquor outlets and bars for the second day running forcing staff to note down the code and token number manually.

The government slapped cases on bars that sold liquor to buyers who had not booked their time slot for purchase in advance via the app. Law enforcers have invoked the provisions of the Epidemic Diseases Ordinance, 2020 against the errant licensees.

The State allowed defence canteens to resume the sale of liquor to serving and retired military personnel and their dependants. It would soon issue an order allowing private clubs to sell alcohol as takeaways to members. Excise officials would inspect the daily sales register at bars and clubs.

₹50-crore sale

The government sold liquor worth ₹50 crore on Thursday. The Kerala State Beverages Corporation (Bevco) has processed nearly 2.25 lakh reservations. As of 6 p.m. on Friday, Bevco has received 1.5 lakh demands for time slots.

(With inputs from Kochi Bureau)