The Centre on Friday extended the nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19 by two weeks beyond May 4. The second extension, until May 17, comes with significant relaxations. The Centre and states have undertaken “granular” planning and risk profiling of districts.
The government has allowed industrial and economic activities, including e-commerce, construction activity, movement of people, and opening of all shops, barring those in malls and marketplaces and complexes, in ‘green’ and ‘orange’ zones. In green zones, buses with 50 per cent capacity have been allowed. It has, however, ordered restrictions in ‘red’ zones, also called ‘hotspot’ districts.
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has listed 130 districts in the country as red zones, 284 orange zones and 319 green zones on the basis of incidence of cases of Covid-19, doubling rate, extent of testing, and surveillance feedback. Most big urban centres, including Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune, are in red zone.
In its order, the MHA said air travel, both domestic and international, train services, inter-state bus transport, and metro rail services would continue to remain prohibited for the two weeks. Educational institutions, religious places, malls, gymnasiums, hotels, cinema halls, etc, will continue to remain shut across all zones.
Movement of individuals for all non-essential activities shall remain strictly prohibited between 7 pm to 7 am across all zones. In all zones, persons above 65, those with co-morbidities, pregnant women and children below 10 shall stay at home, except for health purposes or meeting essential needs.
The announcement on relaxations in economic activities comes on the heels of the Centre allowing inter-state movement of migrant workers, including by trains.
The Karnataka government appealed to migrant workers to be patient and not leave now, promising to open up economic activities that will help them find work. West Bengal disputed the Centre’s list that 10 of its districts were in ‘red’ zone. It insisted that only four were in the ‘red’ zone.
This is the second extension of the lockdown, first of which was enforced for three weeks from March 25 and renewed for another three weeks on April 14.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with Cabinet ministers Amit Shah, Piyush Goyal and Hardeep Singh Puri and Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba to plan the path ahead. Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat and three service chiefs held a rare joint press conference to announce cross country flypasts by fighter jets to honour Covid-19 frontline warriors.
The Centre has defined ‘green’ zones as districts with either no cases, or no confirmed case in the last 21 days. ‘Red’ zones or ‘hotspot districts’ are defined such by factoring in total number of active cases, doubling rate of confirmed cases, extent of testing and surveillance feedback. ‘Orange’ zones are those which are neither defined as ‘red’ nor as ‘green’ zones.
The MHA said the classification was dynamic, and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) will share the list of red, orange and green districts on a weekly basis. States, on review, can include ‘green’ zone districts in the list of ‘orange’ or ‘red’ zones, but not MoHFW’s classification of red and orange districts.
States and district administrations, however, have been allowed some leeway in classifying zones if a red or orange district has two municipal corporations with different levels of spread, or areas outside municipal limits have no or low incidence of cases.
The ‘containment’ zones within red and orange zones will be demarcated by states and district administrations, with intensive surveillance, contact tracing and 100 per cent coverage of Aaryogya Setu App among its residents.
In red zones, plying of cycle rickshaws and auto rickshaws, cab and buses aggregators will remain prohibited, as would barber shops. However, movement of individuals for essential work, four-wheelers with two passengers and two-wheelers without pillion rider will be allowed.
Industrial activity and construction activity in urban areas where workers are available on site will be allowed and construction activity without any restrictions will be allowed in rural areas.
All malls market places and complexes shall remain closed in urban areas. All standalone shops and neighbourhood shops to remain open in urban areas. All shops are allowed to remain open in rural areas. Ecommerce activity is allowed but only for essential commodities in red zones.
Private offices can work with 33 per cent strength and for government offices, 100 per cent strength of deputy secretary and above and the rest employees will work at 33 per cent strength.
In orange zones, cab aggregators will be allowed with one driver and two passengers. In green zones, nearly all activities, unless specifically prohibited, apart from those prohibited across all zones will be allowed. This would include allowing of opening of liquor and cigarette shops. Several state governments wanted liquor shops to open. In green zones, buses with 50 per cent capacity can ply.
Most of the commercial and private establishments have been allowed in the red Zones. These include print and electronic media, IT and IT enabled services, data and call centres, cold storage and warehousing services, private security and facility management services, and services provided by self-employed persons, except for barbers.