Till now, total 20.8 lakh people have been placed under containment zones in Gujarat.

With the fifth phase of coronavirus lockdown coming into force from Monday, the Ahmedabad civic body has identified ‘micro-containment zones’, thereby reducing the number of people covered in such zones to nearly 70,000 as compared to almost 13 lakh earlier.

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The ‘micro-containment zones’ comprise small residential localities in wards across the city, according to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). Till Sunday, the Ahmedabad city reported 12,180 COVID-19 cases and 842 deaths due to the disease. While earlier there were nearly 13 lakh people in containment zones of Ahmedabad, a list issued by the AMC late Sunday night said as many as 69,624 people in 14,160 houses have been placed in 46 ‘micro-containment zones’ of the city.

Restrictions will continue in these zones during the fifth phase of lockdown, the AMC said. “Several areas of Ahmedabad city have been declared as micro-containment zones. Now, instead of bringing the entire ward of the municipal corporation under containment zone, small localities in each ward have been identified as micro- containment zones,” the AMC said in a statement.

The central zone of Ahmedabad has 5,254 houses under the micro-containment zones, followed by north west zone- 3,638 houses, north zone-2,361 houses, south zone-999 houses, south west zone-954 houses, and east zone-786 houses. Exit and entry points of these micro-containment zones will remain closed, and nobody residing there will be allowed to venture out for work or any other purpose, the AMC said.

Only essential services are allowed in these zones between 7 am and 7 pm, it said. The list of micro-containment zones will be “dynamic in nature and updated periodically,” the Gujarat government said on Sunday. Till now, total 20.8 lakh people have been placed under containment zones across the state, as per official figures.