Mumbai: Latest updates - Rain lashes various parts of Mumbai, Thane

Moderate to intense spells of rains continue to lash isolated places in parts of Mumbai and Thane.Parts of Thane and Navi Mumbai have been witnessing light rains since Tuesday morning.

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued an yellow alert indicating heavy rains till June 17 in Mumbai.This year the onset of monsoon was declared on June 9, two days before its official onset date.

The beleaguered Hotel & Restaurant Association of Western India (HRAWI) - founded by J.R.D. Tata - on Tuesday urged Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to allow them to reopen for business in Mumbai.

HRAWI President Sherry Bhatia said that though Mumbai has achieved a Level 2 status as per the latest norms, restaurants and bars in the city have still not been permitted to function as usual, though they are reeling under huge losses.

"The industry with 210,000 restaurants and around 10,500 hotels in the state is under a lockdown in Mumbai practically for 15 months since March 2020, barring a brief period of around 4-5 months, but with several restrictions. Besides no relief has been granted in terms of statutory charges that have led to closure of almost 40 percent of the establishments in the state," Bhatia said.

Mumbai saw a spike of 572 cases and 14 more deaths, pushing its infection tally to 7,16,351 and the toll to 15,216.

Maharashtra on Tuesday reported 9,350 new coronavirus cases, up from 8,129 a day ago, taking its tally to 59,24,773, while 388 more deaths pushed the toll to 1,14,154, the state health department said.

As many as 15,176 patients were discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours, taking the number of recovered cases to 56,69,179, a statement from the health department said. The state now has 1,38,361 active cases, the health department said.