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Bengaluru, May 21: The top two food-delivery startups, Swiggy and Zomato, will begin delivering alcohol in some cities starting from today, as they cash in on the high demand for booze during the country's coronavirus lockdown.

India was among the few countries to restrict liquor and tobacco sales as it announced one of the world's strictest lockdowns in March.

Hundreds of people started queuing up at liquor stores earlier this month when the government eased some restrictions, leading the police to resort to baton-charges to disperse crowds in some cases.

The companies will roll out the service in select cities in Jharkhand, starting with Ranchi from today, Swiggy and Zomato said in separate statements.

Swiggy said it was in advanced talks with multiple states to launch the service in more locations, and both firms said the move to allow alcohol orders through smartphones will promote social distancing and customer safety.

"By enabling home delivery of alcohol, we can generate additional business for retail outlets while solving the problem of overcrowding," said Anuj Rathi, vice president of products at Bengaluru-based Swiggy.

The new service also comes as both Swiggy and Zomato face sharp declines in their core business, with restaurants remaining shut during the two-month lockdown, forcing the companies to cut hundreds of jobs to save cash.

News agency reported earlier this month that Zomato was aiming to branch out into delivering alcohol. Swiggy is backed by South African internet group Naspers Ltd, while Ant Financial, an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, is a major investor in Zomato.

Mumbai, Mar 29: Virologist Minal Dakhave Bhosale led from the front to create India's first coronavirus testing kit even when she was in the last stage of her pregnancy.

Bhosale's efforts paid the price with her team delivering the testing kit in a record time of six weeks.

Bhosale gave birth to a baby girl just a day before submitting the kit to the authorities for evaluation.

"It was like giving birth to two babies," Bhosale told PTI over the phone.

The virologist said both the journeys - that happened in parallel - were not without challenges.

"There were complications in the pregnancy while work on the test kit was on. The baby was delivered through cesarean," she said.

Bhosale said she felt that it was the right time to serve the people to help them in combating the coronavirus threat.

"I had been working for five years in this field and if I don't work in emergency situations when my services are needed the most, then what is the use?" she said.

Though Bhosale was not able to visit the office due to the pregnancy, she was guiding a team of 10 persons working on the project at Mylab Discovery in Pune.

The strong bonds forged with the team over the years and their support made it possible, she said.

Company's co-founder Shrikant Patole said just like drug discovery, test kits too go through a lot of quality checks to improve the precision.

He credited Bhosale for the success of the project.

The COVID-19 testing kit delivered by Bhosale's team will reduce the time taken for delivering a result to 2.5 hours from the prevalent practice of eight hours.

A pioneering approach to testing without compromising on the results was adopted, Bhosale said.

The Maylab test kit will cost Rs1,200, a quarter of Rs 4,500 per kit that the government has been spending on testing so far.

"I'm happy that I could do something for the country," Bhosale said.

As of Friday, only 27,000 of the 1.3 billion people were tested for the virus in the country.

According to experts, high scale testing is essential because it alone can ensure an early diagnosis of COVID-19 and lower down the fatalities.

The company is confident of ramping up the capacity at its plant in Lonavala to deliver 100,000 kits a week, Patole said.

He said the authorities are helping the company, including giving priority for shipping of the raw materials.