Hyderabad
The Telangana cabinet on Tuesday decided to impose state-wide lockdown from May 12 (Wednesday) for 10 days to contain the spread of Covid-19.
There would be relaxation for all the activities from 6 am to 10 am daily, said a brief statement from the Chief Minister's Office.
The decision was taken at the Cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao at Pragati Bhavan, his official residence.
The four-hour relaxation will be for general activities and needs of the people. Only for these four hours will shops open and they would close for the rest of 20 hours as the lockdown would be imposed strictly, said the Chief Minister's Office (CMO).
A brief announcement was made within minutes after the cabinet meet began at 2 pm as the Telangana High Court was to hear the matter.
The high court, during the hearing earlier in the day, had voiced its unhappiness over the lack of effective measures to check Covid spread. During the hearing earlier in the day, it had pulled up authorities for failing to strictly enforce night curfew.
The state government had ruled out imposing a partial or total lockdown, saying the measure would be of not much help in containing the surge. It had also claimed that the situation in the state is totally under control and in fact, a downward trend started in new Covid cases.
Last week, the Chief Minister had stated such a move would bring the life to a standstill and would lead to total collapse of the economy.
