“All private, Corporates, and establishments to be completely shut down.” - Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) , 20th March 2020
All offices in Mumbai will be closed till March 31st. The announcement was made by Chief Minister Maharashtra, Uddhav Thakeray earlier today. The announcement said that only essential services will operate in Mumbai, Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad and Nagpur. The announcement comes as number of Covid-19 positive cases in Maharashtra moved up to 52. As per the announcement government offices in Mumbai would operate at 25 % attendance.
The Chief Minister said – “We have now decided to shut down all non essential services in Mumbai Metropolitan region as well as Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad and Nagpur till the end of this month‘, he said – “Essential services shall operate, any other services important to operate, the collectors shall specify from time to time. Groceries, milk and other day to day items shall be available. Citizens are required to reduce unnecessary movement.“
The Chief Minister added that this step was essential as – “ We have no weapons to fight this thing (virus) except social distancing and hence we have decided to take this step.. The next 15 days are going to very crucial for us.”
Earlier this week, Pune district administration had ordered private employers to allow “work from home” for their employees and advised them of harsh action if the directive was ignored. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had also had issued orders, under Rule 10 of the Epidemic Disease Act 1897, for private firms to allow work from home to their employees. As per the order the establishments were to operate at 50 percent of their staff capacity with rest of employees being allowed to work from home.
In an Additional Advisory for Novel Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19) released yesterday, the Government of India had requested the states to enforce work for home for private sector employees except those working in emergency and essential services. The measures related to advising employers to allow work from home to employees, and close offices are being considered an essential step to ensure social distancing towards limiting spread of Covid-19, and containing major spread.
Update: Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) , has released an updated order in line with the Chief Minister’s statement.
The updated order ( AMENDED ORDER UNDER RULE 10 FOR SOCIAL DISTANCING) ORDER from Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) , issued today (20th March 2020) reads: – “All private, Corporates, and establishments to be completely shut down.”
This excludes essential services – water, sewerage, banking, telecom, internet, railways, petroleum, healthcare, electricity, energy etc. Media, and IT services provided to any essential services are exempt from the order. This may allow for the working of IT companies, ITES, BPO’s, back end services that support the essential services like banking, telecom, etc. Production and manufacturing facilities that require continuity of processes are allowed to continue at 50 % of staff strength. Failure to comply with the order will lead to prosecution under Sec 188 or IPC.
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