Total curfew in city if full lockdown returns: Mundhe

Nagpur: Municipal commissioner Tukaram Mundhe on Friday said that if full lockdown is reimposed in the coming days there will be total curfew in which only medical emergencies will be allowed with restrictions even on essential services.
At a joint meeting held with top officials of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and police department at NMC head office, Mundhe directed them to get into ‘action mode’ and first strictly implement Covid-19 guidelines.
Mundhe told TOI that if people still don’t listen, all options are open, including full lockdown. “I want to avoid full lockdown like in case of many other cities,” he said.
He had left for Mumbai on Thursday and returned in the night. The visit and meeting with police officials triggered speculations about full lockdown from July 25.
“No date has been finalized for full lockdown,” Mundhe told TOI. Sources in NMC told TOI that full lockdown is expected in the last week of July and first week of August.
Few days ago, Mundhe had warned off reimposing full lockdown citing steep rise in Covid-19 cases, deaths and brazen violations of lockdown guidelines.
With 125 new positive cases on Friday, the Covid count in the district surged to 2,774. The district recorded five Covid-19 deaths on Friday, the highest in a day since registration of first positive case on March 11. The district has recorded 45 deaths so far.
Mundhe told TOI that shops are not following alternate day system and remain open beyond 7pm. “Hawkers, tea and food kiosks are operating despite prohibition. Not many are following one rider per two-wheeler rule,” he said.
He said fine will be increased to Rs5,000 from existing Rs1,000 soon on shops violating norms. Subsequently, fine will be Rs8,000 for second violation and Rs10,000 for the third violation.
On auto-rickshaws plying with several passengers whereas permission is only for one, that too for essential services, he said, “Instructions have been given for levying fine and on the spot FIR,” he said.
The civic chief was of the view that police had ensured stricter implementation lockdown at the beginning “but same did not happen in the last one month or so”.
On two incidents of people fleeing quarantine centres, Mundhe directed police department to ensure no such incidents happen in future. “Police officials have also been told to ensure no movement of people in and out of containment zones,” he said.
The civic chief said he spoke to commissioner of police Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay on phone. “The CP had some state-level meeting to attend,” he said.
NMC officials said additional CP and DCPs did not gave their opinion on full lockdown and instead assured stricter implementation of guidelines.