No Vaccination Certificate, No Alcohol Says UP's ADM, Do You Think Assam Should Take Similar Step?

Uttar Pradesh:

Drinking alcohol without a vaccination certificate is prohibited, according to signs put outside liquor shops in Saifai, Uttar Pradesh's Etawah district. The notifications were posted on the directions of Etawah Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Hem Kumar Singh.

Following the hooch disaster in Aligarh, ADM Singh and district police officials investigated liquor businesses in Saifai. After ingesting fake liquor, at least 25 people died in Aligarh earlier this month. 

During the inspection, ADM Hem Kumar Singh asked liquor stores to post notices explicitly saying that alcohol will not be sold to anyone who has not yet received a Covid-19 vaccination. Liquor store owners were also instructed not to sell alcohol to customers without first validating their immunization certificates. 

This was confirmed by employees at Saifai's liquor stores. According to them, the ADM instructed them to vaccinate as many people as possible. 

However, Kamal Kumar Shukla, a district excise official in Etawah, said no order has been issued to restrict the sale of liquor to people who have not yet received the vaccine. He went on to say that while the district administration's attempts to boost vaccination rates should be applauded, there is no regulation requiring vaccine certificates for the purchase of alcoholic beverages. 

The ADM's directive came just days after Firozabad's DM announced that government workers' salary would be withheld unless they received the vaccine. Uttar Pradesh has set a goal of administering one crore doses of Covid-19 vaccination in the month of June. To achieve this goal, district administrations across the state are relying on initiatives such as those announced in Saifai and Firozabad. 

India recorded the lowest daily increase in Covid cases in 50 days, with 1.52 lakh new infections. The government has reported 3.29 lakh deaths since the pandemic began, with 3,218 deaths reported just yesterday. 

In terms of overall case count, India is marginally behind the United States (3.32 crore cases) with 2.8 crore total cases. For the seventh day in a row, India's positivity rate stayed below 10%.

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