The government credits its harsh shutdown of almost all activity since in late March with keeping the tally of cases to a relatively modest 42,500 with around 1,400 deaths.
But it has also caused misery for millions of workers in India's vast informal sector left suddenly jobless and dealt a major blow to Asia's third-biggest economy.
Adding to some relaxations for industry and agriculture last month, on Monday offices could operate with one-third capacity as well as some cars and motorbikes and certain shops.
Officials had painstakingly drawn chalk circles for buyers of booze to stand in but the social distancing efforts were thwarted as people gathered from early morning.
"We have been in solitude for over a month," Asit Banerjee, 55, told media as he queued in Kolkata, where — as in Delhi and elsewhere — police used "lathi" batons to control the crowds.
"Alcohol will energise us to maintain social distancing during the pandemic," he said.
Elsewhere such as in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh state police closed down the shops soon after they opened as long queues of men in face masks snaked around the block.
"One of the shops had opened in the morning but clashes broke out as a lot of crowd had gathered," a police officer in Ghaziabad told Media.
But hundreds continue to loiter in neighbouring streets and bylanes in the hope they would be reopened.
"It's not like I have anything to do at home," Deepak Kumar, 30, told as he waited patiently across the street from one outlet in the national capital New Delhi.
One lucky customer who managed to buy some wine, 25-year-old Sagar, said he went to a store in Delhi at 7.30 am and was delighted to discover it had opened early.
"There were about 20 to 25 people in the morning and the shop was open for about two hours," he told .
"People in rows of five were being allowed in. Now they've shut it."
In some other states, including Maharashtra, certain liquor stores remained shut amid confusion over which outlets were permitted to open. In others such as in Assam they opened several days earlier.
Although illegal in some states like teetotaller Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Gujarat, alcohol consumption has risen strongly in recent years as the country's middle class has grown.
This is particularly true of spirits, with the country of 1.3 billion people reportedly guzzling almost half the world's whisky, although much of it in reality is rum according to purists.
The nationwide lockdown, among the world’s strictest, is being relaxed in some areas with fewer infections, although it will stay until May 17, the government said last week. The measure was adopted on March 25 and extended twice.
Many government cars were among the traffic on Delhi’s boulevards on Monday, while police at checkpoints peered into cars to ensure there were no more than two occupants. Everyone wore masks.
By about 9.30am, a line of more than 500 people had formed outside a liquor store in the capital’s eastern area of Kalyan Puri, before the shop was closed and police baton-charged the crowd to disperse it, a Reuters witness said.
Police were asking some outlets to close in line with an order from excise authorities, said Ajay Kumar, a Delhi government official in charge of liquor stores.“We want to keep the shops open,” Kumar told Reuters, without elaborating.
The easing could drive further infections in India, which has tallied more than 42,500 cases and 1,300 deaths in a steady rise, but some state governments want economic activity to resume as revenue dwindles and millions struggle without income.
“We have to get prepared to live alongside corona, we have to get used to it,” Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, told a Sunday briefing, outlining steps to seal off 97 infection hotspots while opening up the rest of the city of 20 million.
