New Delhi: A day ahead of the end of the nation wide Lockdown4.0, Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla on Saturday extended the lockdown in containment zones, with house-to-house surveillance, for a month up to June 30 through an administrative order while allowing the states to reopen the prohibited activities in a phased manner outside these zones, allowing shopping malls, religious places or places of worship for public, hotels, restaurants and other hospitality services in the first phase from June 8.
The night curfew will be enforced through out the country, exceptf or essential activities, from 9 pm to 5 am instead of the present 7 pm to 7 am with the local authorities to issue orders in this regard under Section 144 of CrPC and ensure their strict compliance. States have been given full liberty impose restrictions/prohibit activities as per assessment. The Health Ministry will issue standard operating procedure (SOP) for allowing the activities in consultation with Home Ministry and concerned stakeholders, ensuring social distancing and to contain the spread of Covid-19. In phase II, reopening of schools, colleges, educational/training/coaching institutions will be taken in July in consultation with the states and UTs, based on the feedback.
No date is fixed for Phase III for reopening the metro rail, cinema halls, gymnasiums, swimming pools, entertainment parks, theatres , bars and auditoriums, assembly halls and similar places,international air travel of passengers, and social/ political/ sports/ entertainment/ academic/ cultural/ religious functions and other large congregations.
Dates for unlocking and restarting them will bee "based on the assessment of the situation." Unrestricted movement of persons and goods, both inter-state and intrastate, will be allowed from June 1, requiring no separate permission or epermit for such movements. But the States and UTs are empowered to regulate movement of persons based on reasons reasons of public health and their assessment of the situation, but only after giving wide publicity inadvance regarding such restrictions.
No state/UT shall stop the movement of any type of goods/cargo for cross-border trade under treaties with neighbouring countries. Lockdown is limited to the containment zones from June 1 to 30 as demarcated by the district authorities after taking into consideration the Health Ministry guidelines. States/UTs may also identify buffer zones around the containment zones, where new cases are more likely to occur.
Restrictions as considered necessary in the buffer zones are left at the discretion of the district authorities. Only essential activities will be allowed in thee containment zone, ensuring no movement of people in or out of these zones, except medical emergencies and maintenance of supply of essential goods andd services.
In the containment zones, there shall be intensive contact tracing, house-to-house surveillance and other clinical interventions as per the Health Ministry's guidelines. States/UTs, based on their assessment, may prohibit certain activities even outside the containment zones, or impose such restrictions as deemed necessary. The movements regulated as per SOPs cover passenger trains, Shramic special trains, domestic air travel, bringing Indian nationals stranded abroad, travel abroad by specified persons, evacuation of foreign nationals and sign-on and sign-off of Indian seafarers.
The guidelines signed by the home secretary as chairman of the National Executive Committee, under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, make it clear that the state/UT shall not dilute them in any manner and all the district magistrates shall strictly enforce the measures. Violators of the measures will be prosecuted under Section 51 to 60 of the Disaster Management Act, besides legal actions under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The guidelines also mandate all employees to install Aarogya Setu APP on their compatible mobiles while district authorities are asked to advise the individuals to install it on their mobiles and regularly update it to facilitate timely provision of medical attention to those individuals are at risk.
