Tamil Nadu: New technology to collect liquor bottles with 4,000 machines in TASMAC outlets

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government has informed the Madras High Court that a new technology-enabled mechanism will be introduced to collect empty liquor bottles under the buyback scheme, with 4,000 state-of-the-art reverse vending machines to be installed in the vicinity of Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Limited (TASMAC) retail outlets.Advocate General Vijay Narayan submitted before a division bench of Justices N Sathish Kumar and K Rajasekar on Friday while hearing petitions related to the matter. He also filed a status report on behalf of TASMAC managing director K Nandakumar.The government said the existing system poses several practical difficulties for outlet employees, including increased workload, delays in refunds, non-availability of change and, at times, law and order issues.“To address the practical difficulties, ensure transparency and accountability and reduce the burden upon the retail vending shop personnel, TASMAC has proposed a technology-enabled mechanism for collection of empty bottles,” the AG said.Under the proposed system, the machines will initially be installed near retail outlets to facilitate the return and verification of bottles and electronic refund of the incentive, eliminating manual cash transactions.About 4,000 machines, one for each retail outlet, are proposed to be installed in the first phase. They will subsequently be set up at designated points, the court was informed.