Lockdown 2.0 Will Continue Till April 30, But These Are The Exemptions Likely To Be Made

Even though the Central government has yet to officially announce an extension of the 21-day nationwide lockdown which is set to end on Tuesday, various state chief ministers, including Arvind Kejriwal, BS Yediyurappa, Captian Amarinder Singh, etc have hinted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has agreed to extend it.

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But unlike the first 21 days where everything except essential services were suspended, the Lockdown 2.0 is set to be a more relaxed one.

As per several chief ministers who were part of the video conference with PM Modi the second leg of the COVID-19 lockdown is set to continue till April 30.

One major change that is likely during Lockdown 2.0 is that states will be given more freedom to choose what is exempted.

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The Union Home Ministry has sought views of state governments on various aspects, including whether more categories of people and services need to be exempted.

One of the most likely scenarios is that states will be allowed to divide the areas into three zones, red, orange and green and the impose restrictions accordingly.

A red zone will be a COVID-19 hotspot, which will continue to be under total lockdown, while an orange zone will be those where people are under surveillance and green zone which has negligible cases.

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Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had suggested that some industries in the green zone should be allowed to function, to keep the economy running.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has flagged a long list of industries that need to open soon in a letter to the Home Ministry.

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¡°It is felt that certain more activities with reasonable safeguards should be allowed once a final decision regarding extension and the nature of lockdown has been taken by the central government,¡± DPIIT Secretary Guruprasad Mohapatra told Home Affairs Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla in the April 11 letter.

It has suggested that industries such as heavy electricals and telecom sector, cement plants, textiles, automobile, electronic manufacturers, construction and units in Special Economic Zones and Export Oriented Units, goods transport vehicles, repair services, fruit, vegetable vendors should be allowed to function.

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The Home Ministry had last week issued an addendum and exempted operations of fishing (marine) and aquaculture industry including feeding and maintenance, harvesting, processing, packaging, cold chain, sale and marketing from the lockdown restrictions. It also exempted hatcheries, feed plants, commercial aquaria, movement of fish/ shrimp and fish products, fish seed/feed and workers for all these activities. The same is likely to continue in the next leg too.

Punjab had Haryana governments have demanded that the agriculture sector should be exempted from the lockdown as it is the harvest season and any delay could result in huge losses to the farmers.

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Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa has also announced certain relaxations to agricultural and industrial sectors to soften the impact on the economy during the lockdown.

In Gujarat, farmers are likely to be allowed to start selling pulses and grains and their farm produce. The state government may also relax lockdown in the districts where no case of COVID-19 has been registered.

In Kerala, the government has announced that Optical sales and repair shops, shops selling and pairing refrigerators, washing machines and mixer grinders, book shops, vehicle workshops, service centres for repairing mobile phones, laptops, mobile phone recharge centres etc will be allowed to open on one designated day in a week.