Disappointing those who were hoping to buy booze without standing in serpentine queues in front of retail outlets from the coming Onam festival season, the Kerala Government-controlled Cooperative Consumers Federation (Consumerfed) has decided to drop its move for arranging facility for booking liquor online.

The federation has dropped its plan, devised to help those who do not want to be seen standing in queues in public view, due to the lack of interest shown to it by the CPI(M)-led lDF Government which is preparing to introduce a new liquor policy in the place of the pro-Prohibition policy the former Congress-led UDF regime had introduced.

“We are abandoning the plan for arranging online booking system for liquor as the Government is not interested in it. The opinion of the Government (that it is not in favour of the proposed plan) has been expressed in clear terms by the concerned Ministers. So we are dropping it. After all, we are an agency working under the Government,” said Consumerfed chairman M Mehaboob.

Mehaboob himself had a few days ago announced the federation’s plan to supply 59 premium liquor brands through the Consumerfed’s 36 retail outlets in the State to those who placed orders online. As per the plan, liquor was to be supplied through special counters at the agency’s retail outlets to those who came with the receipt they got while placing the order online.

The plan was to start the online booking system during the Onam festival which falls in the second week of September this year. Mehaboob had envisaged the system as a means to increase revenues of the federation which has been writhing under debt burden. While boozers in general had welcomed the move, it had infuriated the anti-liquor crusaders.

Mehaboob’s announcement of the move for online booking system had come close on the heels of the reports that the lDF Government was planning to repeal the former government’s liquor policy by which all bars in the State were closed and ten percent of all the retail shops had to be shut down every year leading to eradication of hard liquor by the year 2024.

The Christian Church, the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council, several Muslim organizations and anti-liquor campaigners came out against the federation’s move for online booze booking saying that this was part of the leftist Government’s plan to “let liquor flow freely in Kerala. Some organizations had even decided to hold agitations against the federation’s move.

Criticisms against the federation’s move had come up from the CPI(M) itself. All these factors forced Excise Minister TP Ramakrishnan of the CPI(M), who had announced that the lDF’s liquor policy would be announced soon, was forced to state that the Government was not in favour of the Consumerfed’s proposal.

Meanwhile, CPI(M) sources said that the Government would go ahead with the plan to introduce a new liquor policy in the place of the one implemented by the former UDF regime since 2014. The Government had started considering the plan for a new policy after tourism Minister AC Moideen complained that closure of bars had led to huge revenue drop in tourism sector.

Though the leftist Government it is unlikely to reopen all the bars that had been closed down as part of the UDF’s liquor policy, it may issue bar licences to hotels that come under four-star classification, according to sources. Bars are already operating at five-star hotels and clubs of the elites in the State.

At the same time, the Government is likely to abandon the policy of closing down ten percent of the retail booze outlets every year. Instead, it may open new retail booze outlets of the State-owned Kerala State Beverages Corporation and the Consumerfed at big shopping malls.