Lockdown extended till May 17th.
Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has issued orders under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 to extend the present lockdown for a period of two weeks from May 4.
MHA has also issued relaxed guidelines to regulate different activities across the country as per areas marked as high risk, buffer zones etc. , keeping in consideration the need to allow some economic activity. The risk profiling for areas are based on emerging and existing Covid-19 cases, and accordingly districts have been marked as Red, Green, Orange. Considerable relaxation on economic activity has been considered for areas marked as Orange and Green.
Under the new guidelines a limited number of activities will be prohibited across the country irrespective of zone – these activities are travel by air, interstate movement by road, rail, metro, running of schools, colleges and other educational and training institutions, hospitality services, places of large public gatherings such as cinema, gymnasiums, and religious places.
Business activities allowed in Red Zones, with restrictions:
- Industrial establishments in urban areas – Special Economic Zones (SEZ) , Export Oriented Units (EOU), industrial estates and industrial townships with access control are permitted.
- Manufacturing units for essential goods, including drugs , pharmaceuticals, medical devices, their raw material and intermediaries.
- Production units that need continuous operation, and their supply chain.
- Units manufacturing IT hardware.
- Jute industry with staggered shifts and social distancing.
- Manufacturing units of packaging material.
- Construction activities , where workers stay on site
- E Commerce activity.
- Shops that are not in malls , markets or market complexes – i.e stand alone shops in residential complexes, colony shops.
Apart from the above the commercial and private establishments have been allowed in Red zones include – print and electronic media, IT and IT enabled services, data and call centers, cold storage and warehousing services and services provided by self – employer persons , excluding barber services.
Business activities permitted in Orange Zones.
In addition to activities permitted in Red Zone, taxi and cab aggregators will be permitted with 1 driver and 1 passenger only.
Activities permitted in Green Zones.
In Green Zones, all activities will be permitted except the activities that are prohibited across the country, irrespective of the zone.
Movement of goods:
As per an earlier notification today, MHA had allowed for movement of all goods traffic. As per directions no state / UT shall stop movement of cargo goods for cross land border trade. No separate pass will be needed for goods movement. This allows for maintaining the supply chain of goods across the country.
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