Pktack: Last day of coronavirus lockdown in India: What the country looked like over the past 70 days

Tuesday, 2 June 2020

Last day of coronavirus lockdown in India: What the country looked like over the past 70 days

On 24 March 2020 Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days beginning 25 March, limiting movement of the entire 1.3 billion population of India as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 outbreak. AP

On 25 March, the first day of the lockdown, nearly all services and factories were suspended. Police were instructed to make arrests across the country for violating norms of lockdown such as venturing out for no emergency, opening businesses and home quarantine violations.

On 14 April, Narendra Modi extended the nationwide lockdown till 3 May, with conditional relaxation for the areas where the spread had been contained by 20 April. Lockdown areas were classified as 'red zone', indicating the presence of infection hotspots, 'orange zone' indicating some infection, and 'green zone' with no infections. AP

On 1 May, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Government of India (GoI) further extended the lockdown period to two weeks beyond 4 May, with some further relaxations.Normal movement is permitted in green zones with buses limited to 50 percent capacity. Orange zones would allow only private and hired vehicles but no public transportation. The red zones would remain under lockdown. AP

On 17 May, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) extended the lockdown for a period for two weeks beyond 18 May, with additional relaxations. Unlike the previous extensions, states were given a larger say in the demarcation of Green, Orange and Red zones and the implementation roadmap. Red zones were further divided into to containment and buffer zones. AP

The MHA issued fresh guidelines for the month of June, stating that the phases of reopening would "have an economic focus". This first phase of reopening is termed as "Unlock 1"[13] and permits shopping malls, religious places, hotels, and restaurants to reopen from 8 June. Large gatherings are still banned, but there would be no restrictions on inter-state travel. AP

Migrant workers were worst hit by the lockdown. Millions of migrant workers had to deal with the loss of income, food shortages. Thousands of them then began walking back home, with no means of transport due to the lockdown In response, the Central and states took various measures to help them, and later arranged transport for them. AP

from Firstpost India Latest News https://ift.tt/3dljbPg

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)