Tasmac liquor vending machines unlikely to be popular

CHENNAI: With several questions having been raised, the ambitious installation of liquor vending machines in Tasmac elite shops would be difficult to take off in a big way as it is expected to face several issues including deploying dedicated staff to look into the automated equipment.

The Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac), the monopoly in selling liquor in the State has installed liquorvending machines at four elite shops in the city malls.

As there was no official inauguration after establishing liquor vending machines in the malls, the Tasmac officials have circulated a video, which demonstrates how to get liquor from the machine.

A senior official from the Tasmac, seeking anonymity, said that liquor shop supervisors and assistants were not confident to handle the liquor vending machine as the technology is very new to them since there was no proper training given till now.

Claiming that authorities were planning to install another ten liquor vending machines in the selected elite liquor shops, he said "maintaining both regular sales and monitoring vending machines will be difficult especially during festival times as there are less staff".

The official also said that the liquor vending machine will not provide liquor choice for the customer and the machine will have only one company brand liquor. "There are no proper guidelines on how to call the service engineers when the machine becomes faulty,” he added.

According to him, the vending machines do not have provisions to check the age of the consumer as the money could be transacted by any person to purchase liquor.

On the high-level authorities claim that installation of liquor vending machine is stop MRP violations, the Tasmac official said in order to prevent the sales persons charging more than the retail price, the vending machines should be installed in all the 5,300 liquor outlets across the State.