NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, MARCH 22
The Centre and state governments have decided to announce lockdown in 75 districts across the country where positive cases of coronavirus have been reported. The government has also decided to suspended all inter-state bus services till March 31, officials said on Sunday.
The decisions have been taken at a high-level meeting attended by chief secretaries of all states and the Cabinet Secretary and the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister.
State governments will issue orders allowing only essential services to operate in the 75 districts with confirmed COVID-19 cases or casualties.
In Tamilnadu – Chennai, Kanchipuram and Erode districts and in Gujarat – Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Gandhinagar, Rajkot and Surat districts are announced to come under lockdown by the union government.
With Chandigarh reporting six positive cases of COVID-19, the Union Territory Administration on Sunday ordered a lockdown imposing restrictions till March 31 including suspension of public transport to prevent spread of the infection.
The districts where lockdown was announced are from states that include Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. As per reports, Delhi government is also expected to announce a complete lockdown in the national capital where Section 144 has already been imposed.
Uttar Pradesh’s Noida and Ghaziabad which have seen positive cases of coronavirus have been put under lockdown starting March 22.
It was noted that several state governments have already issued orders in this regard. All the chief secretaries informed that there was overwhelming and spontaneous response to the call for ‘Janata curfew’ given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The state governments may expand the list depending on their assessment of the situation and take decision according to situations.
In the meeting, it was decided to suspend all train services till March 31, including sub-urban rail services.
However, goods trains are exempted. All metro rail services were also suspended till March 31.
The total number of novel coronavirus cases in India rose to 341 on Sunday after fresh cases were reported from various parts of the country, the Union Health Ministry said.
Millions of people across the country stayed indoors, streets wore a deserted look and bare number of vehicles were on the road on Sunday in an unprecedented shutdown on Modi’s appeal for a ‘Janata curfew’ to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed over 13,000 lives worldwide.
