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After video conference with CM, Ghaziabad decides against partial lifting of lockdown
The Ghaziabad district administration has decided to continue with the ongoing lockdown and not allow the opening of any commercial, industrial and educational
The Ghaziabad district administration has decided to continue with the ongoing lockdown and not allow the opening of any commercial, industrial and educational offices or any finance-related activities from April 20. The decision was taken after Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath held a video conference with all the district magistrates and senior officials of the administration on Sunday evening.
On April 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that the countrywide lockdown will be extended till May 3. “In Ghaziabad, we will maintain the status quo and no activity will be restarted from April 20. This decision has been taken due to a higher number of cases in the district,” said Ajay Shankar Pandey, district magistrate.
“Only the industrial units, which are manufacturing or supplying essential items, will continue their operations like before. There will be curbs on movement during the lockdown. If anyone is found moving around without passes authorised by officials, legal action will be taken under provisions of the Disaster Management Act and relevant sections of the IPC,” he added.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, during the video conference on Sunday, told the district magistrates that there would be no easing down of the lockdown in hot spot areas. He also asked the principal secretary (health) not to open the 19 sensitive districts which have 10 or more Covid-19 cases in the state.
The CM directed the district magistrates to take a call on lockdown relaxations while urging the DMs of 19 districts to decide on the basis of “awareness and alertness” after intimating the government.
A couple of days ago, Awanish Awasthi, UP’s additional chief secretary (home), had said that the work for expressways, highways, roads, construction of medical colleges and big housing projects could take off from April 20 if required protocols are followed and permissions are obtained.
According to officials of the industries department there are about 32,000 different categories of industrial units in Ghaziabad, which also include about 350 registered export-oriented units.Nearly 600 units, which are involved in production of essential items, are presently in operation.
“The number of coronavirus cases in Ghaziabad rose sharply on Sunday. On Saturday, we had a total of 30 positive cases but 12 more cases were reported on Sunday. This is by far the sharpest spike in the number of coronavirus positive cases that have emerged in a single day in Ghaziabad. We will now intensify our containment efforts and real-time monitoring in a more aggressive manner,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer(CMO).
From Saturday night, the Ghaziabad police also initiated a seven-day special drive in order to enforce lockdown in a stricter manner. “The cops have been directed to penalise and issue challans to people if more than one person was found riding a two-wheeler. The maximum number of persons permitted in a four-wheeler is two,” said Neeraj Kumar Jadaun, superintendent of police (rural).
By Sunday evening, the police had issued challans to 3,800 people and also seized 117 vehicles as a part of the drive.
Till Sunday evening, Ghaziabad had a tally of 42 positive cases, with 10 patients being discharged from different hospitals. In UP, the number of cases crossed the 1,000 figure mark and stood at 1,084, of which 108 cases were discharged from hospitals.
“We have ramped up sampling and testing. More than 2,000 samples are being tested every day. Till date, we have tested 2,8447 samples of which 27,363 turned negative. Of the cases emerged so far, we have 78% related to men and 22% related to women,” said Amit Mohan Prasad, UP’s principal secretary (health).
The officials also said that 18.5% cases were in age group of 0-20 years; 47.3% in the age group 21 to 40 years, 24.7% in the age group of 41-60, and 9.4% cases were in the age group of over 60 years.
