Cheers! All is well with BevQ app, sale resumes

Thiruvananthapuram: After a break of two days, the BevQ mobile application, which was beset with many glitches when it was launched, is back in an almost error-free avatar. The sale of liquor resumed on Tuesday.

On Monday, about 4.6 lakh tokens were booked for Tuesday through the app that enables virtual booking in queues at liquor shops and bar-cum-restaurants.

There was huge rush for the bookings - about 1 lakh tokens were issued in just 6.5 minutes after the app started functioning again; there were 2 lakh registrations in about 26 minutes and within 90 minutes, about 3 lakh bookings were done.

The Beverages Corporation Ltd (BEVCO) launched the app to regulate queues at its outlets and bar-restaurants when they were allowed to reopen on May 28. The app creates a virtual queue by assigning an outlet to customers through tokens issued on a first-come-first-serve basis.

While the issues with the app in making bookings have been fixed, the QR system for verifying the issued tokens is not yet in place. That being the case, the earlier system of verification that involves sending the list of customers of each shop through emails will continue.

Some bars had not got bookings earlier because of the wrong GPS locations they had provided to BEVCO, Faircode, the developer of the app, said. The problem has been fixed as many have provided the correct GPS locations now, it said.

How the booking is done

The app first allots shops within a 5km radius of a customer. If the slots in all these shops are filled, then the app's software will search for outlets in a 10 km radius, then 15 km, 20 km and so on, Faircode said.

The app has faced many problems before and after its launch. First, there was a big delay in getting it approved by Google for it to be listed on Play Store. After it got listed, users found it difficult to find the app on the Play Store, resulting in many fake apps cropping up. Finally, when bookings were allowed, the app could not generate OTPs properly.

Many customers also complained that the app was assigning them bars or outlets that were quite far away from their chosen place.

Also, the app ended up issuing tokens that were more than the numbers permitted for various outlets. This resulted in overcrowding at many shops, putting at risk the very purpose of the app - to ensure social distancing amid the COVID-19 outbreak.