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The Cabinet Secretary, Rajiv Gauba, will speak to states' chief secretaries at 9 PM tonight over the guidelines for Lockdown 4.0, according to official sources. The guidelines for the next round of lockdown will, however, be made public before that.
At least four states already extended their lockdowns till May 31 even before the Centre's announcement- Punjab, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Mizoram. Karnataka, on the other hand, has extended the lockdown for two more days.
The decision by the states came one after another after the Prime Minister sought suggestions from individual state governments on how they want the next round of lockdown to be. Most of the state governments had expressed a strong desire to partially resume economic activities from May 18. Several states, mainly those with hilly geographies, had also pitched in for the resumption of domestic air travel. The state governments are said to have been unanimous against resuming international flight operations as of yet.
The fourth lockdown was first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his video address to the nation on May 12. The Prime Minister has said back then that the guidelines would be issued by the government in the coming days. The first round of lockdown had been announced by the PM during his address on March 24, which was extended twice, first till May 3 and then May 17.
The PM had said in his address that the fourth round of lockdown would be significantly different from the previous ones, with economic activities slated to begin in a gradual manner.
