Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Friday dropped enough hints that Lockdown 4.0 will come with fewer restrictions, saying the Centre will “relax everything”.
“After May 17, the Government of India is going to relax so many things. According to me, they (Centre) will relax everything, except maybe 5-star hotels...,” Yediyurappa told reporters. “Let’s wait up to May 17,” he added.
Karnataka has taken a rather liberal position on the lockdown and has shown willingness towards relaxing restrictions in favour of economic activities. Earlier this week, the government indicated that gyms, hotels and golf clubs can resume operations after May 17 subject to conditions and restrictions.
During the video conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 11, Yediyurappa pitched for doing away with red-orange-green zoning of districts and focus on COVID-19 containment specific to areas where cases are reported. He also said public transport must be allowed to resume in non-containment zones.
Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan said time had come for normalcy. “It’s been two months already in this fight against COVID-19,” he said. “Since it is imminent that we focus on economic activities, we must learn to live in an equilibrium that has the virus and people. We must learn to live with it.”
Narayan said the state government will ask the Centre to allow all those activities permitted in green and orange zones in the red zones as well. “We await guidelines from the Centre, but all areas except containment zones must be exempted from the lockdown restrictions. Our main demand is that economic activities must be allowed in red zones as well,” he said.