The Haryana government has decided to allow the reopening of shopping malls except in Gurugram and Faridabad

Shopping malls and places of worship will not reopen for the public in Gurgaon and Faridabad districts, the two districts worst hit by Covid-19, for the time being even as they will be thrown open in all the other districts on June 8.

The decision was taken Saturday in a meeting at Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s residence. Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala and Home Minister Anil Vij were also present.

“The Haryana government has decided to allow the reopening of religious places, places of worship for public, and shopping malls in a regulated and restricted manner across the state with effect from June 8, except in Gurugram and Faridabad in view of large number of positive cases being found on a daily basis in the last 10 days in these districts,” a government statement said.

Of the 3,952 coronavirus cases in Haryana till Saturday evening, Gurgaon alone accounted for over 1,692 and Faridabad 620. Among the 24 COVID-19 deaths reported so far, Gurgaon reported four while Faridabad had 10 fatalities, as per state health department’s bulletin issued Saturday evening.

“As per the guidelines issued by Union government, all shopping malls, restaurants and religious places will open. People will have to follow social distancing norms. While religious places will open, but jagrans in temples, namaz in mosques and evening assembly in churches will not be permitted.,” Chautala later said.

Only individual prayers will be allowed and no physical offerings like prasad or distribution or sprinkling of holy water, etc. will be allowed inside the religious place. It was also decided that the community kitchens at religious places should observe physical distancing norms while preparing and distributing food..

Banquet halls with a size of around 2000 square feet would be allowed to operate with maximum of 50 guests at a time and social distancing norms must be observed.

Apart from this, hotels, restaurants and other hospitality services would be reopened with generic preventive measures across the state. The timing of opening for all would be between 9 am and 8 pm to ensure compliance of night curfew between 9 pm and 5 am. “For restaurants, the dine-in facility shall be allowed but only with 50 per cent maximum capacity. The resataurants will have to obtain permissions from the concerned Deputy Commissioner certifying their seating capacity,” Chautala added.

Delhi’s border districts in Haryana including Gurgaon, Faridabad, Sonipat and Jhajjar continue to witness a spike in Covid cases

Of the 355 new cases recorded in last 24 hours, 129 were in Gurgaon, 39 in Faridabad, 89 in Sonipat and 23 in Rohtak in the last 24 hours. The Covid positive rate in Haryana reached 2.89 per cent, Saturday evening.

Haryana’s number of active Covid cases reached 2,648 as the state’s case-doubling rate touched six days. The recovery rate in the state continues to slide and reached 32.39 per cent, Saturday evening.

According to state’s health department’s Saturday evening Covid bulletin, there were 25 critical Covid patients including 15 who were on ventilator while 10 were on Oxygen support.