- Saturday, November 23, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
While Kerala’s move to impose a strict state-wide lockdown in early May helped contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, it hurt a large section of around 200,000 people, mostly old and differently-abled – who sold lottery tickets for their livelihood.
But the state government has now okayed resumption of the lottery business with better commission payments to the sellers of the tickets and quicker revenue-generation goals. Lottery is a major revenue-earner for the government of Kerala to fund its social welfare and public health schemes. According to one report by The Economic Times, the Covid-time restrictions saw revenue from lottery sales in fiscal 2020-21 falling from about Rs 9,973 crore ($1,344 million) to Rs 4,911 crore ($661 million) the previous year. The post-GST profit also came down from Rs 1,764 crore ($238 million) to Rs 474 crore ($64 million).
Kerala lotteries department badly hit
Kerala’s lotteries department has been adversely hit by the latest Covid lockdown with up to 33 lotteries cancelled and draws of nine getting postponed. Given the state’s average sale of 76 lakh (7.6 million) tickets for a daily lottery priced at Rs 40 ($0.5), the turnover loss caused by the cancellation would be more than Rs 1,000 crore ($135 million).
The government has now reassessed the goals post restrictions. K N Balagopal, who took over as the finance minister of Kerala in May, acknowledged that the government is relooking at its goals and that people are eager to buy lottery tickets.
He said the state is now issuing lottery tickets two times a week and it will gradually be made a daily affair. The minister added that lottery tickets not only provide livelihoods to the state’s poorest people but also constitute an important source of income for the government by raising funds for social and medical programmes.
