Sarakku is on Google Play: launch day, in numbers
As of this morning, Sarakku is live on Google Play for every Android phone in Tamil Nadu. It has been in open testing on Play since 19 September and on iPhone through TestFlight since 24 August; today it is a production app anyone can find in the store. Here is what it ships with on day one, using the same counts the app shows.
Free · no account · Tamil and English · strictly 21+, Tamil Nadu’s legal drinking age.
What launched
The store build is version 1.0. It is the app the beta testers have been using, with the new glass icon and the fixes from the last two weeks of testing folded in. The core is unchanged from what we set out to build: a price list you can trust, and a stock count you can act on.
Three things it does that the website cannot. It knows where you are, so the map opens on the shops you can actually walk to, with the count each one reported and how old that count is. It watches the bottles you save and sends one alert when one is back within reach. And it answers with no signal, because the full catalogue lives on the phone; at a counter with zero bars the fixed MRP and the ₹10 deposit still add up in front of you.
The numbers behind the app
Everything in the app comes from the same sweeps that feed this site. On 21 September, the last full trading day before launch, 3,945 of the 4,852 shops reported a shelf count. The nightly Pulse put the state’s evening at an estimated 76.5 lakh bottles, about ₹126.7 crore rung up at counters, with brandy taking 71.3% of every bottle. Those are estimates from stock-count differences, labelled that way in the app, never presented as sales data.
The catalogue stands at 1,502 products, every one with its MRP for every size TASMAC sells it in. What Tamil Nadu actually drinks and where the money in a ₹140 quarter goes are both built on the same counts.
What happens on iPhone
The iOS app is the same code and has been on TestFlight since August. The App Store listing is in review; the first pass asked for changes to the screenshots and to the wording on the location screen, both of which are done and resubmitted. Until it clears, the TestFlight link installs the current build in two taps, and it updates in place when the App Store version lands.
What we ask of you
Two things. If a counter quotes you more than MRP plus ₹10, mark it in the app; it takes five seconds, it is anonymous, and the shop’s tally becomes public. And if a count looks wrong, pull the shop to refresh it, because a live check from the shop screen is the fastest way the numbers get better for the next person.
Sarakku is information only, sells nothing, and is strictly for adults of 21 and over, Tamil Nadu’s legal drinking age. It is not affiliated with TASMAC.
Three weeks of testing, one day of launch, and the same 4,852 shops to count tomorrow.