Two days before Lockdown 3.0 ends on Sunday, states have submitted their views to the Prime Minister’s Office on what should be the contours of the Lockdown 4.0 beginning Monday and how a graded exit from lockdown can be achieved at.
The Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 headed by Health Minister Harshvardhan on Friday had an in-depth deliberation on containment strategy and management aspects of COVID-19, as well as the measures being taken by the Centre and various states.
While it remains to be seen how much life will change after May 18 and how much of restrictions will remain, already some states have opened markets, some began bus services with restrictions and others allowed the majority of the industry to operate.
Liquor shops are now open in Nagpur, vegetable, grocery shops in Ahmedabad and Haryana roadways have decided to run buses in the district while limiting the number of passengers to 30 in each of them. Punjab is also in favour of running buses in select cities and routes.
Holding a video conference meeting with Chief Ministers on May 11, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked for specific feedback on lockdown from them asking them to share with him by May 15 a broad strategy on how each one of them would want to deal with the lockdown regime in their particular states.
The Prime Minister asked states to make a blueprint on how to deal with various nuances during and after the gradual easing of the lockdown and underlined the need for an all-encompassing approach to deal with various challenges that will arise.
While different states have presented different sets of plans but there is a near unanimity and limiting lockdown restrictions, smaller hotspot zones, ramp up tests and controlled opening of transport with substantial relaxation to commercial activities.
Most states want that the decision for earmarking of zones in red, green, and orange should be left to them and have voiced disapproval of Centre’s earlier strategy of making the district the area benchmark for zoning.
Many states are not in favour of restarting normal passenger train services, there are divergent views on starting domestic flight service while almost are not in favour of resuming international air service. Most have battled for resuming economic activities in safe zones. Delhi, Punjab and UP are in favour of opening shops by rotations. While Delhi is not in favour of continuing night curfew, Madhya Pradesh is for it.
Few states are wary of starting inter-state transport, though they want to run buses within the confines of the cities and are an open inter-district movement. Rajasthan is in favour of running smaller vehicles including taxis with curbs.
Uttar Pradesh government plans to permit construction activities, open factories and shops though the malls, market complexes would remain closed. It is also mulling to open salons, beauty parlours, hotels and restaurants with curbs.
Kerala favoured resuming public transport services and interstate movements regulated with passes. Maharashtra government is not lifting the lockdown in Mumbai, Pune metropolitan regions, Aurangabad, Solapur and Malegaon towns. It wants to run the local trains for people in essential services and staggering office hours to reduce crowding in roads and workplaces.
West Bengal is for the phased resumption of public transport such as allowing intra-district buses in green zones with maximum of 20 passengers and strict compliance to social distancing. It wants the red zones to be clarified into three categories. Bihar plans different testing norms for migrants coming from different zones and has suggested to the Centre to extend the lockdown beyond May 17 because of the rapid increase in the number of coronavirus patients in the state.
Tamil Nadu will go for a gradual relaxation in lockdown rules and is in no mood to resume public transport like bus and Metro in Chennai, while it may allow private vehicles with some restrictions. Its offices will function from May 18 with 50 per cent staff who will work in batches.
(With Inputs by Sanjay Pandey, ETB Sivapriyan, Arjun Raghunath, Mrityunjay Bose, Abhay Kumar, Soumya Das)