Since there is no sign of any abatement in the ever growing number of daily Covid-19 cases, Tamil Nadu Government declared total lock down all over the State from May 10 for a fortnight.
As on Saturday evening , the State diagnosed 27, 397 new persons with Covid-19 while the pandemic claimed 241 lives across Tamil Nadu. This took the death toll in the State till date to 15,412.
Eateries could serve only parcel food while Amma Restaurants are allowed to function. Banks and other offices have been allowed to operate with 50 per cent staff while medical stores, milk booths and vegetable vendors have been given green signal to function without restrictions.
The decision to go for the fortnight-long lockdown was taken after Chief Minister M K Stalin took stock of the situation with the district collectors and superintendents of police.
Out of the 27, 397 cases of Covid diagnosed on Saturday, Chennai accounted for 6846, while Chengalpattu came second with 2458 patients and Coimbatore followed closely with 2117.
There was a rejig in the State bureaucracy immediately after Stalin took charge at Fort Saint George (Tamil Nadu’s centre of power) on Friday. V Irai anbu, a 1988 batch IAS officer was brought in as Chief Secretary supplanting incumbent Rajeev Ranjan who has been shunted out as the managing director of Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Ltd.
Stalin also brought in four senior IAS officers to control the Chioef Minister’s Office. They are T Udhayachandran, P Umanath, M S Shanmugham and anu George . Umanath, who was the managing director of Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation, earned encomiums from all over for building the capacity and capability of hospitals across the State by ensuring that they had sufficient stock of oxygen, kits for testing the pandemic and the necessary drugs to combat Covid-19.