Aurangabad, March 27:
In a move to control the rapidly spreading Coronavirus infection in the district, the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) today announced a 100 per cent lockdown from March 30 (Tuesday) to April 8 (Thursday). The lockdown order has been issued jointly by the district collector Sunil Chavan and the police commissioner Nikhil Gupta in the evening.
The order is enclosed with Appendix A (non-permissible) and Appendix B (permissible) so that the routine life of citizens could not be affected. The authorities appealed to the citizens not to avoid crowd or gathering at one place, maintain social distance, cover the faces with masks and wash hands regularly to break the spreading chain of Coronavirus in the district. The rise in reporting of Covid-19 patients has prompted them to take drastic measures.
Under Appendix A, all the hotels, lodges, restaurants, bars, resorts, shopping malls, commercial markets, hair cutting saloons, beauty parlours, vehicles (two, three or four-wheeler), schools, colleges, educational institutes, coaching classes, public and private transport (including local bus service, truck, tempo etc.), wine shops (selling foreign and Indian liquor), construction sites, cinema halls, gyms, swimming pools, theatres, auditoriums, function halls and all places of worships (only one person will be allowed to perform the daily rituals). There is also a ban on marriage (any other auspicious celebrations), social, political, cultural, religious, entertainment or sports-related programmes or functions, agitations, demonstrations, strikes etc.
Under Appendix B, the grocery shops (wholesalers and retailers) are allowed to remain open from 8 am to 12 noon (home delivery after 12 pm); milk sellers and distributors - from 6 am to 11 am; mutton, chicken, eggs and fish shops from 8 am to 12 noon; fruit and vegetable shops from 6 am to 11 am; shops of daily needs (grocery and vegetables) in super markers (like D Mart, Big Bazaar, Prozone Mall etc.) from 8 am to 11 am (home delivery after 12 noon) etc.
The schools, colleges and coaching centres are allowed to continue conducting online classes (to impart education or teaching), autos with two passengers with mask, vehicles transporting essential commodities, all courts, banks, government offices, petrol pumps, gas services, shops selling automobile spares and agriculture items and equipment (from 8 to 12 noon) etc.
The permission of attendance in the last rites is restricted to 20 persons. The construction work (if the arrangement of workers is made on-site), registered marriages as the date is already scheduled, kitchen in lodges to provide food to customers in their establishments etc.
All the industries and their suppliers business, customer service centres, media, hospitals, clinics, pathology laboratories, e-commerce business (Flipkart, Amazon ) etc. will remain unaffected.
The air, bus and train transport service are also unaffected, but the passengers will have to produce an RT-PCR or antigen test report (having validity of 72 hours) on demand. The establishments permissible to remain open will have to conduct the RT-PCR test or antigen test of staff, owner and labourers every fortnight during the lockdown. They will have to possess the latest certificate, stated the order.