New Delhi: Global food delivery app, Zomato, in an announcement, said that it will now be providing home delivery service for alcohol in Odisha, on Tuesday, after receiving permissions from the Odisha state government.
The service has been started with Bhubaneswar and will soon be expanding the same to various other cities like Rourkela, Sambalpur, Berhampur, Balasore, Balangir, and Cuttack.
“We’re happy to be of service to our users in Odisha who can now use Zomato to get alcohol delivered in addition to grocery and food delivery. We are working very closely with excise departments to ensure end-to-end compliance to the safety guidelines and are also introducing consumption and identity verification protocols to promote responsible ordering and consumption,” said Rakesh Ranjan, the Vice President at Zomato, India.
Users can benefit from the service from 9 am to 6 pm as allowed by the state officials. Zomato also said that the application will only allow and contain the licensed retailers who have applied for the service. No shops from malls or containment zones shall be allowed.
There would be age checks at the time of ordering as well as when the product is delivered, the company representative said.
Customers need to upload a valid authorized ID proof to be entitled to order alcohol which would later be verified by the delivery partner at the time of handing over the order at their home.
There would also be product category limits to promote responsible ordering, it further added.
The Vice President also thanked the Odisha state government for permitting the company to provide the home delivery service to the customers, “We are thankful to the Odisha government and the liquor retail industry in enabling safe and compliant delivery of alcoholic beverages in Odisha. We look forward to building this partnership together,” he said in the statement.
The Odisha government, from Sunday, had allowed the liquor stores for home delivery of the same. The decision was made to encourage social distancing after hundreds were found outside alcohol shops queuing to buy liquor. Existing ON/OFF alcohol stores have been told to display their phone, mobile, WhatsApp numbers, e-mail id and UPI details for receiving the orders and facilitating digital payments outside their shop. Shops can receive orders via phone calls, text messages, WhatsApp messages, e-mails, etc., as well.
Odisha State Beverages Corporation will be notifying the district-wise list of ON/OFF liquor shops along with their details on its website, osbc.co.in. The new MRPs of alcoholic beverages will also be shown on the website.
The home delivery service will be available between 7am and 6 pm while the shops have to make sure that the delivery gets done within 6 hours of placing the order.
As for Swiggy and Zomato, they had received permissions to start alcohol home delivery service in Jharkhand, last week.
