A view of the crowd before a TASMAC outlet near Central bus stand in Tiruchi. | Photo Credit: B.Velankanni Raj more-in The Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) is in the process of reopening closed retail vending outlets in the Tiruchi Corporation area in the wake of the recent Supreme Court order on denotification of particular stretches of highways running inside the urban limits as city roads. Since the start of this month, 25 retail vending outlets have been reopened, and the remaining 33 will be restarted shortly, official sources said. As many as 119 outlets in the district had to be closed in compliance with the apex court’s order in 2016 that banned serving of liquor within 500 metre of national and state highways. Since Tiruchi is centrally located in the State, shops located along or close to all the five National Highways — NH 45B: Tiruchi Madurai, NH 45: Tiruchi -Chennai, NH 67: Tiruchi-Nagapattinam, NH 210: Tiruchi-Pudukottai, and NH 227: Tiruchi-Chidambaram — had to be closed. After the reopening of the 25 outlets in the city limits, 165 outlets now have functional status in the district, sources said. Most of the reopened shops have started transactions in the pre-existing locations, District Manager of TASMAC Selvam said, adding that the staff of the reopened shops who were deployed elsewhere have now been sent back to their original workplaces. Besides the 25 retail vending outlets of TASMAC, owners of about 15 hotels, and clubs in the city limits have also reportedly reopened the bars. Since the urban local bodies may not be in a position to spend much on maintenance of the denotified roads, there is a likelihood for the State Government to classify them as Major District Roads to ensure that the upkeep could be retained by the Highways Department, it is learnt.

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