Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra on Monday said a potential lockdown in Maharashtra will hurt poor, migrant workers and small businesses. The buisnessman's request comes after Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray hinted for an another lockdown in the state to curb the spread of COVID-19 cases.
With each passing day, the state of Maharashtra has been reporting massive surge in COVID-19 cases owing to which CM Uddhav Thackeray led government has issued several guidelines, stricter rules along with imposition of night curfew. While, if the cases don't see a decline then the CM has directed the administrators to impose another lockdown in the state.
The Mahindra Group Chairman, instead, urged the administration to focus on hospital/ health infrastructure and on avoiding mortality as a lockdown can negatively impact migrant workers and small businesses.
In a tweet he wrote, “The problem, @OfficeofUT ji, is that the people a lockdown hurts most are the poor, migrant workers & small businesses. The original lockdowns were essentially to buy time to build up hospital/ health infrastructure. Let’s focus on resurrecting that & on avoiding mortality,”
Owing to the massive rise in Covid infections across Maharashtra, Thackeray, on Sunday ordered the State administration to plan for a lockdown as social distancing restrictions are not being followed. The Maharashtra CM gave the orders at an emergency meeting of the state task force for the pandemic.
Earlier this month Anand Mahindra had called for emergency permission from the government to vaccinate all willing individuals against Covid-19 in Maharashtra owing to a sharp increase in cases, in a bid to reduce the economic impact of the same.
Besides Mahindra, today, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, state BJP president Chandrakant Patil and NCP leader Nawab Malik today have appealed to the CM for not imposing a lockdown in the state.
Meanwhile, the state today recorded a slight dip in the cases as 31,643 tested positive unlike last three days where cases above 35,000 have been recorded consistently.
