The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will ease the timings for shops selling non-essential items, after the civic body realigns the boundaries of the existing containment zones, PMC chief, Shekhar Gaikwad, said on Sunday.
Currently, in containment zones, only stores selling essential items can operate between 10 am and 2. Pm, while Outside the containment zones all vendors can operate between 7 am and 7 pm.
As of now, Pune has 69 containment zones covering an area of 9.91 square kilometres.
PMC chief Shekhar Gaikwad said, “We are awaiting official orders from the state government based on which relaxations can be given outside and within containment zones. We might add or remove the containment areas form the existing list depending on the number of cases. We will review each area and take a call accordingly.”
This detailed order on Pune’s new containment limits is likely to be issued on Monday, May 18.
Currently, most containment zones are located in and around the Bhavani peth and Dhole Patil road wards, with the rest scattered across the city.
As of May 15, of the 1,164 active positive cases 921 from are from within the containment zones, while remaining are from the non-containment zones.
{{/usCountry}}As of May 15, of the 1,164 active positive cases 921 from are from within the containment zones, while remaining are from the non-containment zones.
{{/usCountry}}Saurabh Rao, a nodal Covid-19 officer for Bhavani peth, who was also part of a meeting on Sunday evening regarding reviewing the containment zones, said, “Currently we have about 69 containment zones, after reviewing the situation we have found that there are 24 such zones where there have no new cases in the last 14 days and so we could announce these as non-containment zones. Whereas on the other hand we have also found that there are 23 new areas which need to be declared as micro-containment zones. There are also five containment zones where the boundaries will be reddrawn based on the reporting of cases and then, accordingly, shop timings will be revised. “
Rao further added that the revised containment zones will see aggressive information, education and communcation campaigns along with aggressive practice of social distancing with the help of police and PMC staff. This will continue till May 31
Bhavani peth’s mircro cluster
Meanwhile, Majula Bai chawl at Bhavani peth, has reported 13 more cases taking the tally of positive cases from the same SRA complex to 48. According to mayor Murlidhar Mohol. Mohol the entire building has been sealed and everyone has been quarantined.
Rao said, “About 584 samples were taken as of Saturday evening and more 70-80 samples were taken through the day and so the number of positive cases may go up.”