No Social Distancing: Hordes and Hordes to buy Liquor in many regions of India
The bank line queues were being criticized by the citizens whereas standing in the sun for alcohol that too for hours is even not justified.
Lockdown 3.0: The third phase of lockdown has come up with several relaxations on the sale of essential and non-essential commodities for the alone standing shops in the containment zones. Re-opening of the liquor shops in the country saw a huge rush where people forgot to take any precautionary measures and the social distancing norms were totally broken. On the first day of Lockdown 3.0 these green zone areas wine shops witnessed long queues outside for liquor commodities for hours at the peak afternoon time too.
In Delhi the police had to control the emerging crowd at the shops and finally asked the shopkeepers to shut seeing the people notwithstanding the commands. Many regions of the country saw the same condition yesterday. Irrespective of any particular gender or cast people a limited number of crowd were seen wearing masks but most of them didn’t barely considered the safety. The government had ordered a minimum of six feet distance from each other and not to let more than 5 persons in the shop at a time. The condition on Monday was seen at its worst where people didn’t prefer following the rules for alcohol which is again a non-essential commodity. The bank line queues were being criticized by the citizens whereas standing in the sun for alcohol that too for hours is even not justified.
The states including Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka and Delhi saw the rising crowd in front of the alcohol shops which the center permitted to open considering it as a part of economy activity in the nation. The sale of alcohol counts in the revenue earned by the Government. IANS agency reported on Uttar Pradesh to have sold at least 100 crore on liquor yesterday. HT reports that Lucknow, state capital of Uttar Pradesh alone sold liquor worth Rs. 6.3 crore. The prices of the liquor have also been hiked according to PTI reports which stated the Government’s hike of 50% in the rates would fetch an additional revenue of Rs. 9,000 crore per annum.
“As per the tentative figures we received from across the state, around 3.9 lakh litres of beer and 8.5 lakh litres of the Indian-made liquor (IML) were sold, netting Rs 45 crore when the liquor shops were shut by 7 p.m., as per the new guidelines,” an official told IANS as per Hindustan Times reports.
But the indiscipline in the public seen on the streets on Monday hasn’t shown any decline as per today’s report Noida even observed a big queue on the wine shops. Delhi’s chief Minister Arvind Kejrival on observing the pathetic condition on the streets imposed a “special corona fee” of 70% on price of every liquor category that would be sold in the city from the next day i.e. Tuesday. These implications seem to affect the category paying for liquor minutely as the prices for eatables are pretended to be more irrespective of the stake in alcohol. Karnataka in south saw the sale on liquor to be Rs. 45 crore on Monday.