Nagpur: Though eligible for complete unlocking, guardian minister Nitin Raut, municipal commissioner Radhakrishnan B and collector Ravindra Thakare have decided to play safe and resume activities in phased manner to prevent any rise in Covid-19 cases or deaths in the district.
They have allowed essential and non-essential shops, malls, saloons, gyms, theatres to remain open till 5pm, and restaurants and bars till 10pm, while keeping religious places, educational institutions, political programmes etc closed.
Similarly, four more districts of Vidarbha; Yavatmal, Chandrapur, Gondia and Washim, have avoided full unlock as suggested in the level-I order from state government.
All five districts issued the unlock notifications on Sunday, mostly in line with relaxations for level-III districts.
Radhakrishnan and Thakare took permission from chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and chief secretary Sitaram Kunte in meetings for this strategy.
Raut said, “Seating capacity on two-wheelers, three-wheelers and four-wheelers will be as per RTO registration.
Restaurants, bars and theatres will have to operate at 50% capacity.
Private and government offices are allowed 100% capacity till 5pm.
We continued cap on attendance in marriage ceremonies, social, cultural and entertainment programmes, which is 50% of hall capacity or 100 persons, whichever is lower.
Funerals can have up to 50 persons.
All meetings and election programmes will continue online.” Raut said, “After the high number of cases and deaths in second wave, we don’t want to take any risk.
We will watch till Thursday and take further decision on Friday.
More relaxations may be given in case there is no rise in weekly test positivity rate (TPR) and percentage of oxygen bed occupancy.” Radhakrishnan said, “Around 200 people are testing positive daily.
Active cases are around 3,500.
Therefore, resumption of all activities in phased manner is inevitable.” Asked the reason for not allowing religious places, Raut said, “We are forced to resume commercial establishments and private offices to avoid financial crisis.
Pandemic is not over yet and there are projections of third wave.
Police will barricade two ends of all markets after 5pm.
There will be restrictions on gatherings and movement of five or more people after 5pm.” Now, Raut said, “Stress will be on tracing, testing and treatment of contacts and comorbid.
Vaccination of all eligible people will be completed as soon as possible, especially all mothers, for safety of children.
All preparations will be completed for third wave.
Stringent action will continue on those not wearing mask and violating guidelines.” The remaining seven districts in Vidarbha are already in level-III, so these districts also announced similar unlock rules.
Common features of all districts in Vidarbha are – Shops including non-essentials will remain open till 4/5 pm, restaurants to function at 50% capacity.
Most districts are keeping cinema halls closed while auditoriums will start with 50% occupancy.
The biggest relief for Vidarbha is there will be no need to get e-pass for travelling anywhere within Vidarbha.
Passes are required only for those coming from level-V districts to other regions.
Maharashtra state has no level-V district so far.
So, travelling throughout the state has become pass-free now.
Even public transport has been allowed at full capacity.
Amravati, and Akola are the districts where positivity rate is reducing, but bed occupancy was still high.
Both districts reported a good number of recoveries on Sunday.
Akola collector Jitendra Papalkar said orders will be reviewed on Thursday as per government directives and new relaxations or restrictions could be announced.
“Akola’s oxygen bed occupancy is also reducing fast.
We are hopeful for level improvement next week.
For this, I appeal to people to follow Covid appropriate behaviour,” Papalkar said.