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Maharashtra Govt imposes night curfews, weekend lockdowns from tomorrow

In view of the growing cases in the state with Maharashtra accounting for almost 50% of the total number of infections in India, the government has stepped forward to announce a list of restrictions to control the rising covid cases.  

As such, the state government issued orders of a night curfew across the region along with a “strict lockdown” in place for weekends. It will extend from Friday 8 pm to Monday 7 pm.  

This lockdown will be imposed from tomorrow from 8 pm to 7 am on the next day.  

List of restrictions placed as part of the curfew include: 

  • Five or more people will not be allowed to congregate throughout the day 
  • Restaurants, bars and mall will be shut 
  • Only home deliveries and essential services will be permitted 
  • Construction tasks and industrial activities will be allowed to run 
  • Rules to stop crowd gatherings in vegetable markets will be implemented 
  • Though cinema halls will remain closed, film crew will be allowed to continue with shoots 
  • Weekends will only see essential services operating with all other services shut 
  • No restrictions will be placed on traffic 
  • Public transport will function with 50 % capacity. 

The new announcement came into the picture following Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s cabinet meeting on Sunday. The meet was to decide on the possibility of a second lockdown to tackle the situation. This was 2 days after the minister said that he could not reject the imposition of the curfew.  

With almost 50,000 new cases registered on Saturday, Maharashtra became the state being responsible for nearly 60% of all cases reported in the country on the day. It is seeing an upward trajectory in the number of cases as it reported 48,000 new cases on Friday.  

On Saturday, Mumbai alone registered more than 9,000 cases, breaking its own record of the highest number of single-day cases ever since the pandemic hit the world in 2019’s December. Compared to this, the city reported over 8,800 new infections on Friday.  

Another Maharashtrian city, Pune, went into a night curfew from yesterday after the government announced the 12-hour curfew on Friday. Malls, hotels, bars and religious places will remain shut for a week. Public buses too will not remain functional during this period.  

ALSO READ:-Covid scare- Pune to enter 12 hour night curfew from tomorrow; 6pm- 6am

Out of the top 10 worst-hit districts in India, 8 are from Maharashtra, as per the Central government.  

At the end of a high-level meeting on Sunday, authorities concluded that central teams along with public health specialists and clinicians will be sent to 3 states- Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Punjab- due to the high number of cases yet a debatable number of fatalities.  

Contributing 47% of the total covid deaths in India, the state’s medical services is struggling to keep things under control.