With daily COVID-19 cases crossing 10,000 and test positivity rate almost touching 15 percent, the Kerala government has decided not to open bars and beer & wine parlours for the time being. As it stands, private bars offer only counter sales, that too till 5pm.
The decision was taken at a high-level meeting convened by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday to take a call on allowing customers within the bars with certain restrictions in place. Bar owners had also petitioned the government to open the bars.
However, the meeting came to the conclusion that opening bars a this stage would accentuate COVID-19 spread. Sources said it was health principal secretary Rajan N Khobragade's argument that won the day. The health secretary gave a break-up of the daily COVID-19 figures and said that nearly 90 percent were infected through contacts. He also reminded the meeting of the recent surge in COVID-19 cases saying it was a consequence of relaxed social distancing norms during Onam, and argued that opening of bars would only help in intensifying the spread.
The health secretary expressed the hope that the cases could come down by the middle of November and only at that point, he said the reopening of bars should be considered.
Then, there was also the issue of enforcing curfew in many districts. At the moment, the police is trying hard to ensure that groups of more than five were not formed in public. The State Police Chief, Loknath Behra, said if bars were opened, the police would find it even more difficult to control crowds.
Beverages Corporation, too, wanted bars to open as the counter sales of bars were affecting BEVCO sales. It was found that over 70 percent of the liquor sales were accounted for by private bars doing counter sales.
This was even seen as suspicious as according to official records 70 percent of the liquor bottles despatched from BEVO warehouses were taken to BEVCO outlets and only the rest were set apart for private bars. However, the sales figures show that private bars were doing 70 percent of the business.
It was said that BEVCO had suffered a loss of nearly Rs 400 crore during Onam, a time when its profits traditionally peaked.