Liquor shops opened in Kerala today amid the ongoing nation-wide lockdown. (Representational)
Over two lakh people downloaded and registered on BevQ, Kerala's liquor sale virtual queue management mobile application, within hours after it went live on Google play store, ahead of the reopening of liquor shops in Kerala today.
BevQ is an app for the virtual queue system which was introduced by the state government to control the crowd in front of the liquor shops in Kerala amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown.
Kerala-based Faircode technologies, the company which developed the application, said: "About 1,82,000 users registered in the initial two hours from 10 pm to 12 midnight on Wednesday."
"Approx 50,000 users registered between 2 am to 6:30 am on Thursday. The token booking for today was extended up to 9 am. The booking was extended for the users who were not able to book a token yesterday," said Naveen George, Chief Financial Officer, Faircode technologies.
The mobile app is live on google play store but it will take some time till it is indexed by Google and available via search,, he added. "The users can try to search using the application using 'pub: Kerala State Beverages Corporation' in the play store."
A person can register with name and pin code, after which it sends an OTP for verification purposes. The app gives details of the shop along with the time slot allotted and a QR code.
A customer will then have to go to the allotted liquor shop and produce the e-token which will be scanned in the liquor outlets. Bars are also allowed to sell liquor for takeaway following the same system.
An SMS facility has been introduced for those who are not using smartphones. The booking can be done from 6 am to 10 pm and liquor sales are allowed from 9 am to 5 pm.
Following social distancing norms, only five people are allowed in front of the counter at a time.
The police said action will be taken if someone enters liquor shops without the mandatory app-generated token.