The Andhra Pradesh government on Tuesday drew flak after it decided to rope in teachers from government schools as volunteers to control the crowd at liquor stores in Visakhapatnam. On the second day after reopening liquor stores, the city saw long queues where physical distancing was not being properly maintained.
With policemen and volunteers unable to control the swelling crowds on their own, teachers were roped in by the state government. Officials said that the teachers distributed tokens to those who lined up to buy alcohol and helped in managing the crowd.
Speaking to reporters in some places, the teachers said that they received oral orders from the District Educational Officer (DEO) to report to their nearest police station, from where they were allotted a wine shop to do crowd management.
Some of them told reporters that they felt 'guilty' managing crowds at wine shops as that is not what they signed up for, when they took up the profession.
The move was criticised by opposition parties including the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and actor-politician Pawan Kalyan's Jana Sena Party (JSP).
Don’t bring down the morale of ‘TEACHERS’. I wonder! what if, Late Sri Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
— Pawan Kalyan (@PawanKalyan) May 5, 2020
( Great Guru & Former President of India) would have felt ,after reading this news, that AP Govt is forcing ‘teachers to guard liquor shops’ instead of teaching. pic.twitter.com/3hg5Tmoh0T
The Andhra Pradesh government on Tuesday announced a 75% prohibition tax on liquor, a day after stores saw huge crowds on their first day of opening, despite a 25% tax. Following this, it was decided to increase the tax by another 50%.
However, the hike failed to deter people, who gathered in large numbers at the shops across the state, flouting physical distancing norms.
Officials said the latest decision was taken to discourage liquor consumption in view of the conditions that prevailed on Monday.
The YSRCP government said that the number of liquor shops would be further reduced by 15% by the end of this month. The YSRCP, which had promised total prohibition, started phase-wise implementation of its plan after coming to power in May last year.
As a first major step towards prohibition in October last year, the Jagan Mohan Reddy government's state-owned Andhra Pradesh Beverages Corporation Limited (APBCL) took control of liquor shops from private contractors after reducing the number of outlets to 3,500 from 4,380.
Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday reported 67 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the state's total virus count to 1,717 589 persons discharged and 34 deaths. The active number of cases stands at 1,094.
IANS inputs