Delhi govt may set up a web page, app for home delivery of liquor

On Friday, the Supreme Court observed that states should consider the indirect sale of liquor, either online or through the home delivery mechanism to ensure social distancing norms are not violated.

The Delhi government is working on setting up a web page—and deliberating on creating a mobile phone application—to enable the home delivery of liquor in the Capital, as a measure to reduce the massive crowds outside the limited number of open liquor shops. With the scaling down of the lockdown measures earlier this week, people started thronging the few liquor shops open for business.

A liquor shop volunteer checks the e-coupon of a customer as per Delhi government guidelines before he queues up at a liquor shop in New Delhi on Saturday. (Mohd Zakir/HT PHOTO)

“We are drafting a standard operating protocol. So far, the excise department has had three meetings on this with the chief secretary and at least one with the finance minister (Manish Sisodia),” a senior government official said on Friday.

Another senior government official said, “The weblink is in progress but the app will need several technological changes. So, we require more time. The process would need to include a tie-up with a reliable payment gateway as well. The government has plans to launch the link by Monday.”

On Friday, the Supreme Court observed that states should consider the indirect sale of liquor, either online or through the home delivery mechanism to ensure social distancing norms are not violated. So far, several states including Punjab, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, have initiated the process of enabling the home delivery of liquor.

Currently, the guidelines of the Union home ministry state that the e-commerce delivery of goods is limited to essentials (which does not include liquor) in red zones (all 11 districts of Delhi are red zones). Also, the Delhi Excise Act 2009 prohibits the buying and selling of liquor online.

“However, a temporary provision can still be made under the ambit of other laws, such as the Disaster Management Act,” the official said.

On Friday, the Delhi government also rolled out a web link with which it started issuing e-tokens, specifying the stores and timings, for residents to avoid crowds outside the shops and pick up liquor during allotted time slots.

“Any person can apply for an e-token through the link ‘https://www.qtoken.in/’. His/her name and phone number will be required while applying. The e-coupon will be sent to the registered mobile number. With that e-token, the person will be allowed to buy liquor from the nearby shop,” a statement issued by the government read.

Getting the tokens via the web link on Saturday, however, was a distant dream for most people with the page constantly reporting a ‘server error’. There were problems in the back-end too, due to which, a senior government official said, the excise department could not summarise the data on the total number of e-coupons issued on the first day.

Government officials maintained that it was because of too much traffic on the page and the issue would be resolved at the earliest. Excise commissioner Ravi Dhawan did not respond to phone calls and messages for comment on the issue.

Delhi has 864 liquor shops, of which only 172 have received permission to open so far, as they are ‘stand-alone shops’—which means they are not located in markets, malls and commercial spaces, which the central government guidelines prohibit for red zone districts.

The government is open to the idea of allowing private liquor shops to operate too, but a survey by the municipal corporations showed that only 30 of them across the city qualify as ‘stand-alone’ shops.