Liquor shops to open outside sealed areas

TNN | May 4, 2020, 07:21 IST

Lucknow/Noida: After a gap of 40 days, the state government on Sunday allowed liquor shops to open from Monday, with a few riders.
Across red and orange zones in the state, liquor shops can only open in areas outside containment zones. In Noida, there’s an additional caveat — only standalone shops can open. “Shops will be open between 10am and 7pm. People have to follow social distancing norms while buying,” additional chief secretary (information and home) Awanish Awasthi said.
UP chief secretary RK Tewari issued guidelines stating no more than five persons will be allowed at a liquor shop at any point of time. Consumption of liquor in public places is banned. The decision is being seen as a move to reopen a revenue channel that had been severely hit by lockdown. In a state-wide assessment, it was found that lakhs of cartons of hard liquor and beer could not be sold after shops closed during the lockdown. This led to major losses for the excise department.
On April 25, the government had offered concessions in excise policy and allowed the sale of existing stock at 2019-20 prices for a week after shops opened. This means liquor could be bought at pre-March 24 prices till April 11. The new excise policy was to be implemented from April 1 but was eventually not implemented because of the pandemic.