Chennai: In what could be seen as music to the ears of tipplers, who were left ‘high and dry’ in the wake of lockdown to tackle the spread of coronavirus, the Tamilnadu government on Monday announced opening of State-owned TASMAC liquor shops from 7 May, but with some stringent conditions.
An official release here said the shops in the State would be allowed to open from 10 am to 5 pm from 7 May onwards in non-containment zones, following reports that people from Tamilnadu were making thronging the border areas of neighbouring States like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh where wine shops were allowed to open.
“As there are difficulties in restricting the people’s movement in the border areas of neighbouring States thronging the liquor shops, the government has decided to open the TASMAC shops from May seven onwards from 10 am to 5 pm”, an official release here said. Healthcare experts too have expressed fear that reopening of TASMAC shops
without taking enough precautionary measures might result in increase in coronavirus cases. However, the government said bars attached to the TASMAC shops would remain shut.
While stating that shops would not be opened in COVID containment zones, it said those shops outside the containment zones alone would be allowed to function with some conditions that included, avoiding crowd in shops, maintaining a six ft distance between each person, not to allow more than five people at a time in the shop, deployment of adequate security and avoid crowd by unnecessarily posting more than the requisite number of staff
on duty.
Observing tht the Centre had been announcing some relaxations from time to time to prevent trhe COVID spread, the release said the Union Government, while extending the lockdown for another two weeks from 4 to 17 May, has allowed opening of liquor shops in some States with some conditions, but not bars.
In this scenario, neighbouring states bordering Tamilnadu like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have already announced opening of liquor shops, leading to people from Tamilnadu living in border areas making a beeline, prompting the TN govt to open the TASMAC shops in the State, it said.
It may be noted that sales from TASMAC, the monopoly agency in selling liquor, was one of the major revenue earners for the state government to fund its populist chemes.
The revenue has been increasing every year and crossed the Rs 30,000 crore mark during 2019-20. But with the shops remaining closed for more than 40 days since 25 March in view of the lockdown, the State has lost a revenue of about Rs 4,000 crores during this period.
While the average sales on weekdays ranged from Rs 90 to Rs 95 crore, it would touch Rs 100 crore to Rs 125 crore during weekends, and would touch a new high during festival seasons like New Year, Pongal, Christmas, Deepavali and Pongal.