Good news for liquor consumers in Andhra Pradesh. They won’t have to carry cash to the wineshops whenever they want to buy liquor anymore.
After a gap of nearly three and a half years, the Jagan Mohan Reddy government has introduced sale of liquor at wine shops through online payment mode. The consumers can pay for the alcohol through digital mode as well.
According to the orders issued by the state excise department, the liquor consumers can pay the money through Google-Pay or Phone Pay or even by scanning the QR code.
Hitherto, the department was allowing only cash payments at the liquor shops since the Jagan government took over the retail liquor business since October 2019, through the state-owned AP State Beverages Corporation Limited (APSBCL), thereby eliminating private parties that had till then been supplying liquor to people in the state.
In fact, the decision to introduce digital payments at retail liquor outlets in the state was taken in November 2022, following criticism from various quarters over the cash payment mode.
To start with digital payment facility will be available at 1,000 retail liquor outlets located mainly in urban areas, including district and mandal headquarters.
The State Bank of India (SBI) has been entrusted with the task of accepting digital payments. SBI is working out modalities for remitting to APSBCL the amount paid digitally by customers.
The corporation, in turn, will pay this amount to liquor manufacturers / suppliers periodically to get fresh stocks of liquor.
Andhra Pradesh daily gets about ₹60 crore from liquor trade. Authorities are expecting that to start with about 1–2 percent of this amount will come by way of digital payments.
APSBCL authorities say digital payments will help them track sale of liquor in terms of brand, volume, price, liquor outlet, customer identity and other details.
This will enable them to analyse data and find out the preferred brands of liquor, frequency of purchases, consumption pattern and so on.
