Food delivery services Swiggy and Zomato will now start alcohol home delivery in West Bengal, after already offering the service in Jharkhand and Odisha. Swiggy will start its service in Kolkata and Siliguri, and has obtained necessary approvals from the West Bengal government. Swiggy said its alcohol retailers will be offered a dedicated app from where they can manage product listings and stock updates. Details about Zomato's operations are yet unknown as a company spokesperson could only confirm that they'll begin the service in West Bengal. We have reached out to Zomato for more information. Swiggy said users will need to complete a "one-time" "age verification" by uploading a picture of their valid government ID, followed by a picture of their face, "which the platform will use for authentication". When Swiggy had launched alcohol delivery in Odisha, it had tied up with HyperVerge to carry out face and age verification of a user, and had said that it will digitise the customer’s ID card, check if the customer’s selfie matches with the picture on the ID card, and then check for selfie’s liveness, i.e. if the customer is really present or if it is a photo of a photo. It isn't clear if it is using the same service in West Bengal and we've asked them about that. All alcohol orders will carry a OTP which will have to be provided to the delivery person by a user, at the time of delivery. There is also a capping on the order quantity, although we…
