$8.5 Million Worth of Booze Sold in Kerala on Onam Day

That’s just one day (US$8.5 million!) and not all outlet sales figures are out. Alcohol in Kerala is sold through Kerala State Beverages Corporation (Bevco) and Kerala State Co-operatives Consumers’ Federation Limited (the apex body of the consumer Co-operatives in the state), popularly know as ConsumerFed.

The chart below is from 2010 but it shows the preference of Kerala residents for Rum. On average, a Kerala resident (that’s everyone above the age of 15) consumers 11.1 litres of a year. In 2010, over 8.65 million litres of rum was consumed per month, followed by brandy (6.18 million litres), beer (5.63 million litres), vodka (0.6 million litres), whiskey (0.1 million litres) followed my wine and gin, relatively too small to mention actual numbers.

 Here is an Asianet report of sales this year. People seem to be choosing to buy at modernised outlets than stand it line. This year the Vytlya Bevco store alone sold close to $100,000 worth of beverages on Onam day.

The Government of Kerala intends to shut these shops in phases. They have restricted bars to five star hotels, resorts and some cultural and sports clubs. Given the fact the state is broke, this would financial suicide and what will those brandy and rum consumers do to get their fix?

Here is a video of a chettan explaining how to make charamyam at home:

Prohibition has not worked anywhere and this is a shortsighted foolish attempt to appeal to a traditional vote bank.

Considering how much money they make, one would expect Bevco to have a better website. It’s stuck in the pre-2000 era. This is something they should pay attention to considering e-commerce potential of beverages. Here are some figures available on the Bevco site (in rupees crores):

The figures have not been updated since August 2013. The interesting thing to note here is the trend. Sales figures have increased 10X in the 15 years mentioned above. Can you think of any other government owned business that brings in so much revenue and profits?

Kerala needs a comprehensive alcohol policy. Eliminate rent seekers and give people access to good quality beverages at nominal prices. If we don’t have a comprehensive plan, from production to retail, we are encouraging those with political links to create unnatural profits. Biding for bar licenses is another way government can increase revenue. It is close to impossible if you are a small cafe owner to get a license to serve even beer.

Hopefully better sense will prevail and this will change. Let’s drink to that, cheers!

Main photograph by y Kjetil Ree from Oslo, Norway (Vinmonopolet avdeling Kerala) [CC BY-SA 2.0 or CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons