The Cabinet, scheduled to meet on Saturday morning, is likely to consider giving substantial relief on lockdown conditions to rural areas.
The reason is obvious — rural parts of the State have reported a total of 283 COVID-19 cases.
Of 12,575 village panchayats in 388 blocks or panchayat unions, 156 village panchayats in 115 blocks have only reported cases. As of now, there are only 110 active cases, while 171 patients have been discharged, and two deaths have been reported. The active cases are spread over 80 panchayats of 61 panchayat unions.
Conscious of these facts, the State government has been receiving suggestions from different quarters on why the rural parts of the State should not be treated separately from urban areas, even while sticking to norms of physical distancing, standard operating procedure and the Centre’s guidelines.
Even though the Centre, in mid April, gave nod to States for resuming a number of activities from April 20, the State government chose to confine itself to select activities such as works under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Essential services and continuous processing industries have also been allowed to function.
Just as the rural parts of the State, non-containment zones in several districts are likely to get similar treatment. The Centre is said to have conveyed to the State government that it is up to the latter to identify non-containment zones, even as the classification of districts as ‘red’, ‘orange’ and ‘green’ will continue.