Crowds throng liquor shops, Andhra ups prices by 50%

New Delhi: 06.05.2020

Undeterred by steep price hikes or the urgent need to maintain distance, impatient crowds were back outside liquor vends on Tuesday, pushing and jostling in many places as they sought to lay their hands on a bottle of their favourite tipple.

A day after lockdown curbs were eased and liquor shops opened across large parts of India, triggering near riot situations, lakhs of people lined up or gathered outside from early morning, counting the hours for the shutters to go up and then more hours till they reached the counter.

The scenes played out in towns and rural centres in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Delhi, just as they did on Monday, the fear of Covid-19 eclipsed by the eagerness to access alcohol after more than 40 dry days.

On Tuesday, the Andhra Pradesh government enhanced prices by 50%, over the 25% hike it had imposed the day before. Late on Monday, the Delhi government announced a 70% ‘special corona fee’ on alcohol.

But it clearly didn’t matter much, not to casual drinkers who wanted to stock up their bars and not to the more serious tipplers and addicts reduced to despair without any alcohol. AGENCIES


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The price, whether of premium scotch or wine or of humbler spirits, was of no consequence it seemed.

“It’s not the cost. It’s the availability that matters right now. See the crowd even though the shop has not opened yet,” said Prateek Singh, a student, pointing to the crowds outside a liquor shop in east Delhi’s Shakarpur locality early in the morning.

From the hill town of Nainital came videos on social media of people standing under umbrellas in the hail waiting a suitable distance from each other to get to the liquor shop.

Serpentine lines going round the corner and beyond formed in many parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and Maharashtra among other places.

Andhra Pradesh special chief secretary (revenue) Rajat Bhargava said the increase in liquor rates was to “discourage” people from consumption and safeguard health.

And in Kolkata, long queues were seen outside standalone liquor shops with either police or local administration ensuring that tipplers maintain social distancing. In the Karnataka capital Bengaluru, as if proving right the naysayers, drunken brawls claimed two lives.

A man in his mid-thirties was stabbed to death by his friend after an altercation at a party organised to celebrate the resumption of alcohol sale on Monday as part of the easing of lockdown restrictions. In the second incident, a youth was beaten to death by his friend in an inebriated state.

In a bid to reduce the crowds, the Chhattisgarh government launched a web portal for home delivery of liquor in green zones of the state. Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu government announced resumption of liquor sales from May 7.