The Delhi government intends to ask the Centre to tweak its procedure to notify Covid-19 red and orange zones for the national capital to let them ease restrictions in areas that haven’t had a single coronavirus case.
“We are finalising a proposal to be submitted to the Union Health Ministry to consider a municipal ward, and not a district, as a unit for notifying red zones,” a senior Delhi government official told Hindustan Times.
The national capital’s 11 districts have been placed under the red zone by the Health Ministry.
With the home ministry extending the lockdown for two more weeks, this means that the city’s estimated population of 19 million people would remain under the extended spell of lockdown. The home ministry on Friday evening extended the lockdown due to lapse on May 3 midnight by another two weeks.
Officials said treating the district as a unit was unfair to the people of the city and the Centre should take a smaller unit.
“The North-East Delhi District, the country’s most densely populated district, is spread over 56 square kilometers. It is unreasonable to count the entire district as one unit and place it under a continued lockdown because there were some clusters of Covid-19,” an official said.
{{/usCountry}}“The North-East Delhi District, the country’s most densely populated district, is spread over 56 square kilometers. It is unreasonable to count the entire district as one unit and place it under a continued lockdown because there were some clusters of Covid-19,” an official said.
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“I think the Centre should give Delhi a break.. It is unfair,” he added.
He reasoned that if the Centre continues to use the same parameter, it would be months before Delhi moves into the green zone.
The city government believes a better strategy would be to demarcate the city into municipal wards - there are 272 wards under the three municipal corporations besides the NDMC and Delhi Cantonment Board - and count a ward as red, green or orange zone depending on the number of cases.
When the zones system was launched last month, these were initially divided on the basis of cumulative cases and the rate of doubling of cases.
“This time, we have broadened the criteria. The areas have been labelled also keeping in mind the fact these should not become potential hot spots if relaxations are given as per the green zone criteria.
This implies that some places may be in the green zone but were still designated as orange or red due to their proximity to areas where the case load is high.