Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday announced a lockdown of the State beginning midnight on Monday to curb the spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). He also announced the sealing of borders of all districts to prevent the movement of private vehicles, except those carrying essential and perishable supplies.
In his daily address to the State on Monday evening, the Chief Minister said, “I am compelled to announce a State-wide lockdown. While a majority of people are responding to the call to not come out on streets, there are many who aren’t doing this.”
“Yesterday we sealed the State borders and today we are sealing district borders. We will not allow it to spread to the districts which are unaffected as of now,” he said.
The next few days would be crucial as the fight against coronavirus has reached a “turning point”, said the Chief Minister.
An official notification issued after Mr. Thackeray’s address said the lockdown till March 31 is under section 2 of Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 read with all other enabling provisions of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
All public transport services including inter-city buses and Metro will be stopped. Taxis with not more than two persons plus the driver, and autos with not more than one person will be allowed only for emergencies. Plying of private vehicles shall be restricted only to the extent of procuring essential commodities, health services etc. The inter-district movement of vehicles has also been cancelled.
Any congregation of more than five persons in public places stands prohibited. “All religious places of any denomination shall be closed,” the notification said. The government has also asked divisional commissioners, municipal commissioner and collectors to identify vacant places near hospitals to house health staff, if necessary.
Meanwhile, municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi on Monday allowed railway staff to be ferried by suburban locals and private security staff to also use public transport. The State had allowed staff providing essential services to use State or BEST buses.
Further to that, the commissioner’s order issued on Sunday said, “In view of total shutdown of local train services in Mumbai, in view of running essential services, I have come to the conclusion that in addition to the earlier order, the train services of the railway will also be needed for providing transport for emergency service providers and since all the offices/establishments are closed, there will be a need for private security services to them to help the police maintain law and order.”
Railway staff and private security staff will be allowed to use MSRTC, BEST buses and local trains.
Uber suspends services
Uber will be suspending its services across key cities in the country in compliance with the government’s directives to limit movement in the wake of the rising number of cases of the novel coronavirus across the country including key cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
“Uber is complying with all Central and State Government directives related to its services for containing the spread of Coronavirus. We are communicating the status of specific cities with riders through our app,’’ an Uber spokesperson said.
In a blog published on the company’s website, Uber said that services across India had been affected after the government decided to seal off 80 districts which had reported positive cases of novel coronavirus. “This means that, while we will continue to offer services to meet the essential and urgent travel needs of many communities we serve, some or all of Uber’s rides services will not be available till further notice in the following cities,” the blog stated.
Other cities where Uber services have been suspended include Tirupati, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh; National Capital Region; Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot in Gujarat; Dhanbad, Jamshedpur, Ranchi in Jharkhand; Bengalure, Mysuru and Mangaluru in Karnataka; Amritsar, Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Ludhiana in Punjab; Ajmer, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, Udaipur in Rajasthan; Hyderabad in Telangana; Agra, Bareilly, Kanpur, Lucknow, Prayagraj, Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh; and Asansol, Durgapur, and Siliguri in West Bengal.
(With inputs from Tanvi Deshpande and Ajeet Mahale)
