To tackle the coronavirus crisis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced a complete lockdown in the country. Minutes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a 21-day nationwide lockdown to contain the novel coronavirus stating midnight, the Ministry of Home Affairs came out with a comprehensive list about what will remain operational and what will not during the nationwide lockdown.
Here are services that will remain closed during this nationwide lockdown:
- Offices Of the Government Of India, its Autonomous/ Subordinate Offices and Public Corporations shall remain closed.
- Offices of the State/ Union Territory Governments, their Autonomous Bodies, Corporations, etc. shall remain closed.
- Hospitals and all related medical establishments, including their manufacturing and distribution units, both in public and private sector, such as dispensaries, chemist and medical equipment shops, laboratories, clinics, nursing homes, ambulance etc. will continue to remain functional. The transportation for all medical personnel, nurses, para-medical staff, other hospital support services be permitted.
- Commercial and private establishments shall be closed down.
- Industrial Establishments will remain closed.
- All transport services air. rail, roadways will remain suspended.
- Hospitality Services to remain suspended
- All educational, training, research. coaching institutions etc. shall remain closed.
- All places of worship shall be closed for public. No religious congregations will be permitted, without any exception.
- All social, political, sports, entertainment, academic, cultural, religious functions/ gatherings shall be barred.
- In case of funerals, congregation of not more than twenty persons will be permitted.
- All persons who have arrived into India after 15.02.2020. and all such persons who have been directed by health care personnel to remain under strict home/ institutional quarantine for a period as decided by local Health Authorities, failing which they will be liable to legal action under Sec. 188 oi the IPC.
- Wherever exceptions to above containment measures have been allowed. the organisations/employers must ensure necessary precautions against COVID 19 virus, as well as social distance measures, as advised by the Health Department from time to time.
- In order to implement these containment measures, the District Magistrate will deploy Executive Magistrates as Incident Commanders in the respective local jurisdictions. The Incident Commander will be responsible for the overall implementation of these measures in their respective jurisdictions. All other line department officials in the specified area will work under the directions of such incident commander. The Inciident Commander will issue passes for enabling essential movements as explained.
- All enforcing authorities to note that these strict restrictions fundamentally relate to movement of people, but not to that of essential goods.
- The Incident Commanders will in particular ensure that all efforts for mobilisation of resources, workers and material for augmentation and expansion of hospital infrastructure shall continue without any hindrance.
- Any person violating these containment measures will be liable to be proceeded against as per the provisions of Section 51-60 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, besides legal action under Section 188 of the IPC (as per appendix).
- The above containment measures will remain in force, in all parts of the country, for a period of 21 days with effect from 25.03.2020.
Meanwhile, the confirmed coronavirus cases in India jumped to 562 on Wednesday. Of them, 43 are foreign nationals. The ministry said that 40 coronavirus patients have also been cured or discharged so far. While the death toll related to COVID-19 rose to ten.
The active cases stand at 512. Kerala overtook Maharashtra in terms of cases with 109 cases turning positive in the southern state. Maharashtra has the second-highest cases at 101.
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