Home delivery of alcohol in Odisha soon!

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government is mulling on allowing home-delivery of alcohol, reports said.

As per reports, the state government is contemplating home delivery of alcohol and a final decision is expected to be out next week.

The Excise department last week had written to district collectors to ask distilleries/breweries to resume production which was amply clear that liquor shops are going to up their shutters soon. However, counter sale of alcoholic beverages will be a challenging task as far as maintaining social distance is concerned.

In lockdown 4.0, the state government has permitted opening of stand alone shops and take away restaurants in the wake of COVID19 pandemic. It is feared that people might not adhere to social distancing norms while buying alcohol from counters thereby increasing the risk of transmission.

In places like Delhi and Bangalore, people were seen queuing up outside liquor shops since early morning. While some outlets ensured social distance was maintained, overcrowding was seen at counters flouting the norms.

Recently, the Supreme Court had also suggested states to consider home delivery to maintain social distancing.

With implementation of home delivery system, 2082 liquor shops in the state will be able to sale their products.

On the other hand, online food ordering delivery platform Swiggy launched home delivery of alcohol in Ranchi today.

Similarly, Zomato is also planning to launch alcohol delivery services. It had requested the government to allow it to use a “technology-enabled home delivery-based solution” that can promote “responsible consumption of alcohol”.