No relax order from state, existing curbs to continue

Nagpur: A day after announcement by health minister Rajesh Tope, the state government did not issue any new orders related to Covid-19 unlock. Citing this, officials here said the existing restrictions will continue in the district even after August 2 and there is no need for issuing fresh orders.
After the meeting of state task force on Thursday, Tope had announced about decision taken to relax restrictions in 25 out of 35 districts in the state. All 11 districts in Vidarbha are among the 25 to be benefited following the relaxation criteria fixed by the state. As per Tope, timings of all commercial activities will be increased from existing 4pm to 8pm.
Municipal commissioner Radhakrishnan B told TOI, “Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) did not receive any new orders from the government. Therefore, we will continue with the existing restrictions. We will implement whatever decision is taken by the government. Accordingly, new guidelines will be implemented in case any changes are announced by the government in next two days.”
The NMC and collectorate used to issue orders for implementation of existing restrictions for the next week. No orders were issued by the NMC and collector office on Friday.
Resident deputy collector Avinash Kathade said, “Earlier, we used to mention specific time period in the order. In the last order, we had mentioned that existing restrictions will continue till further orders. Therefore, there is no need to issue new order and existing restrictions will continue if no changes are announced by the government.”
Though the district’s weekly Covid-19 test positivity rate is less than 1% for the last seven weeks, stringent restrictions are still being enforced here.