Almost a fortnight after withdrawing its order allowing home delivery of alcoholic beverages on health grounds, the Meghalaya government has allowed wine shops and bonded warehouses in the State to sell liquor for seven hours a day from April 13 to 17.
An official memo from the State’s Commissioner of Excise to all the heads of districts on April 11 put a few riders on relaxing the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on the liquor wholesalers and retail outlets.
Apart from urging liquor sellers to ensure that customers followed social distancing rules and cough etiquette, the memo made it clear that the local authorities should allow only one member of a family to buy. They were also instructed to prohibit the movement of such a member from one locality or village to another in search of liquor.
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Wine shops were asked to provide hand sanitisers to customers besides guiding them “to other nearby wine shops within the same locality/village” in order to strictly avoid overcrowding.
The Meghalaya government had on March 30 issued an order allowing restricted sale of liquor on medical grounds and advising tempered drinking for consumers. The other was withdrawn the next day after an objection from the Indian Medical Association.
On April 3, the Wine Dealers and Welfare Association in State capital Shillong had appealed to Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma for granting permission to open the bonded warehouses and retail outlets for “dealing with the stress” caused by the “abnormal situation”.
Onus on headmen
In an earlier order, the State’s Health and Family Welfare Department entrusted the traditional village chiefs or headmen to keep tabs on people who have recently arrived in their villages and localities and enforce 14-day home quarantine for them.
“As far as practicable, the Headman/Rangbah Shnong/Nokma should also follow up with the person under home quarantine,” the order by the Department’s Commissioner-Secretary Sampath Kumar said.
A Rangbah Shnong is a traditionally elected headman in a Khasi tribal village or locality. The Nokma is his Garo tribal counterpart.
The order was necessary as the headmen “are the pillars of society” and are “essentially linked to and duty-bound to cooperate and coordinate with the government in this trying time of the pandemic of COVID-19”, Mr. Kumar said.
