Half of Delhi’s 92 containment zones turn orange, offer hope of normalcy

Delhi’s number of localities under containment zones has increased from 80 a week ago to 92 after more localities reported Covid-19 cases and were placed under a hard lockdown.

Updated on: May 23, 2020, 15:29:49 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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Half of Delhi’s 92 active containment zones have not reported a single case in the last 14 days and could turn green over the next fortnight or so, a senior Delhi government official said on Saturday.

IAF aircrafts perform aerial salute to express gratitude towards all frontline workers including medical professionals, police and sanitation workers for their contribution in fight against COVID-19, at Vijay Chowk, in New Delhi. (Sonu Mehta/HT PHOTO)

The city government started notifying localities that report Covid-19 cases as containment zones from late March. Since then, officials said 126 localities were declared as containment zones. Over the last few weeks, authorities have removed 34 of these areas from its containment zones list, reducing the number of active zones to 92.

Containment zones comprise apartment blocks, gated communities, slums, streets, even entire neighbourhoods. They are complete quarantine zones and no one is allowed to step out even to buy essential goods such as milk, vegetables, fruits etc.

All the entry and exit points and even the internal lanes are barricaded. The authorities allow only a number of selected vendors to supply groceries and other essentials to the neighbourhood with the help of RWA and civil defence volunteers.

In these zones, health workers conduct house to house surveys, carry out contact tracing to identify potential cases and carry out tests apart from paying special attention to sanitation in the area.

The number of localities under containment zones has increased from 80 a week ago to 92 after more localities reported Covid-19 cases and were placed under a hard lockdown.

“Our analysis of the containment zones implies that the focussed action taken by the administration in containment zones is paying off,” a senior government official said.

A total of 13 of the 45 containment zones that have not reported any fresh cases over the last 14 days and are classified as ‘orange’ containment zones are in the South District, the official said.

If these 45 zones do not report cases over the next two weeks, about 2.5 lakh more people would be free to get back to their normal lives. An overwhelming majority of them are in two containment zones of the Central Delhi District - Sadar Bazar and Nabi Karim - that are home to 1.7 people. People in these two zones have been living under a hard lockdown for over 40 days.

Three other containment zones in Central Delhi District - Chandni Mahal, Bara Hindu Rao and Nawabganj - continue to remain under what is classified in the government’s analysis as red containment zone because fresh cases continue to be reported from these areas.

Containment Zones that have not reported Covid-19 cases for 14 days:

AF Block Shalimar Bagh

Gali No 3 Shalimar Village

H No-62 B Block Gali No-4 Shastri Park

A-97,98,99 Near Buland Masjid, Shastri Park

E-51 Main Road and E-224 Gali No-8 Shastri Park

T-606, Gali No-18 Gautampuri

Block No XH No. 303/6 Gali No. 1 to H. No. 289 Gali No.3 Yadav Villa

Sadar Bazar

Nabi Karim

Entire affected street near Gandhi Park

Entire affected street of Gali No. 5, 6 & 7 L1 Sangam Vihar

Affected area around H No A-176 Deoli Extension

Shop No. J-4/49 Khirki Extension, Khirki Village

Jain Mohalla Pandit Mohalla from Epic Centre 715 Chirag Delhi

Boundary Start from B-4/200 and cover the whole locality till backside of Humayupur

House No 859/20 L-II Sangam Vihar

H No 153/B 4th floor Savitri Nagar

Entire area affected at Gali no 2,3,& 4 of Deoli Extension

H.NO F-258, campa cola Gali, Lado Sarai

F-313, Near Shiva Mandir Lado Sarai & F-274, 2nd floor Lado Sarai

Apartments in Samshi Talaab, Ward no 8 Mehrauli

Jamila Masjid Baoli

G, H AND I Block, Police Colony, Model Town

Sanjay Enclave, Jahangirpuri

H. No. 300 St No.-3 Krishna Puri Main Road Mandawali to H. No- 739/16 Gali. No.-3 Krishna Puri Mandawali

H/2-98 C1 Bengali Colony, Mahavir

Room No. 13, Plot 1294, Opp DC Office, Kapashera

RZF-756/7, Gali No. 01 Band, Raj Nagar-II, Dwarka, New Delhi

C-2/119 Block Janakpuri

Nizamuddin West (G and D Block Areas)

Complete area of Street/Gali No. 18 to 22 of Zakir Nagar & nearby area of Abu Bakar Masjid of Zakir Nagar

H.No. 811 to 829 and 842 to 835 khadda Colony, Jaitpur Extn, Part II

H.No. 1144 to 1134 & 618 to 623, Khadda Colony, Jaitpur Extn. Part-II

Gali No. 16, Kachhi Colony, Madanpur Khadar Extn

Mahela Mohalla, Madanpur Khadar

H-Block, Near Umra Masjid, Abu Fazal Enclave.

E-Block (House No. 48A to 84A), Abu Fazal Enclave.

House No. 53 to 55 & 25, Shera Mohalla, Garhi, East of Kailash.

House No. F-138 & F-139, Gali No.01 (Shiv Mandir Wali Gali) Harsh Vihar, Hari Nagar Extension

E Pocket GTB Enclave

F-70-90 Block Dilshad Colony

Pratap Khand Jhilmil Colony

Gali no. 3,4,5 East Ram Nagar, Shahdara

Dayanand Vihar H.No.15 to 101

Gali No 18, H. No 701/23 to 500/36 B, Vijay Park, Maujpur

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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