New Delhi: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has said that the city state will follow the Centre’s lead on allowing relaxations to the lockdown. “The Delhi government will maintain status quo and will not relax lockdown restrictions till May 3, except those permitted by the Union home ministry,” he said.
This comes a day after some confusion prevailed in Delhi on whether shops would be allowed to open. Late on Friday night, the Union ministry of home affairs had issued new guidelines saying that single shops in urban areas would be allowed to open.
However, the Delhi government was reluctant to do so. “Senior officials and experts had told the government that lifting relaxations in Delhi was not feasible, considering the sudden uptick in the number of cases over the past few days,” a report in the Indian Express said.
The Delhi government intended to keep the lockdown in place as is till at least April 27. That plan, however, quickly came apart.
“On Saturday afternoon, as TV channels reported that MHA had relaxed the rules, shops started opening despite there being no go-ahead from the state government. When our officials went to these areas and asked people to shut their shops and follow the Delhi government guidelines, they showed them the MHA order and said the Centre was the final authority. In many areas, things got heated and a law and order situation emerged. In three-four places, officials were pushed around by shop owners. We realised that things had got out of control and had to convene a meeting, where it was decided late in the evening that there was no option but to take the MHA line,” an official told the english language daily.
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Now Kejriwal has said that neighbourhood and standalone shops will be allowed to open but markets and malls will remain closed, just as the home ministry guidelines and their corrigendums dictate. The containment zones will remain entirely shut.
Delhi remains one of the worst affected states in India due to COVID-19. As of Sunday afternoon, it had recorded 2,626 confirmed positive cases, of which 1,702 are currently being treated and 54 have died.
Kejriwal said that the plasma therapy being tried out in Delhi has so far worked well on the few patients who have received that treatment. However, the number of patients is too small to draw any conclusions yet.
The chief minister also informed people that the coronavirus does not discriminate between religions. “We need to work together. Plasma of a Muslim can be used to treat a Hindu patient and vice versa,” Kejriwal said.
(With inputs from PTI)