After an initial U-turn, the Maharashtra Government has unveiled a five-level unlock plan, as part of its decision to relax lockdown-like restrictions in 18 out of the 36 districts in the State, from Monday.
Less than 30 hours after it reneged on un-lock strategy announced by State Relief and Rehabilitation Minister Vijay Wadettiwar, the MVA Government announced that it would implement the un-lock plan in 18 districts — Aurangabad, Bhandara, Buldhana, Chandrapur, Dhule, Gadchiroli, Gondia, Jalgaon, Jalna, Latur, Nagpur, Nanded, Nashik, Parbhani, Thane, Washim, Wardha and Yavatmal— from June 7 (Monday).
The five-level unlocking plan has been decided on the basis of positivity rate and occupancy of Oxygenated beds. “The five levels of restrictions shall be applied on the basis of two parameters: Case positivity rate and percentage of Oxygen bed occupancy. Every Disaster Management Authority shall enforce these levels of restrictions over administrative units falling under its jurisdictions,” the notification issued late on Friday night announcing the levels of restrictions for “Breaking the Chain”.
For this purpose, the Maharashtra government identified 10 major municipal corporations, including Mumbai, Thane, Nagpur, Pune, Aurangabad, Nashik and Navi Mumbai, and 34 districts as separate administrative units to implement the unlock plan.
Under the plan, the cities/districts with less than 5 per cent positivity and less than 25 per cent of oxygen bed capacity as the first layer, while the cities with less than 5 per cent positivity and the oxygen bed occupancy ranging from 25 per cent to 40 per cent as the layer 2 category.
The cities/districts with positivity ranging from 5 to 10 per cent or with Oxygen bed capacity is more than 40 per cent have been categorised as level 3, while cities and districts with positivity ranging from 10 per cent to 20 per cent or with Oxygen bed capacity is more than 60 per cent have been listed under layer four. The level five cities and districts are the ones with positivity more than 20 per cent or with the oxygen bed capacity more than 75 per cent.
In the level 1 and 2 cities and districts, shops and other establishments dealing with essential items will operate regularly. In level one cities and districts, malls and theatres will remain open, while in level 2 places, malls and theatres will operate 50 per cent capacities.
In level 3, four and five cities and districts, shops and other establishments dealing with essential items will remain open till 4 pm. The establishments dealing with non essential items will remain open in level cities and districts till 4 pm, while they will remain closed in level 4 and five cities and districts. Malls and theatres will remain closed in level 3, 4 and 5 cities and districts.
The district collectors, and municipal commissioners of various civic bodies have been authorised to issue separate notifications on which areas are classified under which categories in their jurisdictions.
It may be recalled that hours after the State Relief and Rehabilitation Minister came out with a five-layer unlock plan on Thursday, an embarrassed Shiv Sena-led MVA government had come out with a clarification that the lockdown restrictions had not been lifted in the State.
In a clarification issued later that evening, the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) had said: “The Covid-19 spread has not been stopped fully yet. In rural areas, the virus spread is on the increase. Considering that the virus is proving to be dangerous in view of the mutation that is taking place, we will have to see whether we can relax lockdown restrictions. As of now, the lockdown restrictions have not been lifted yet”.
“However, under the ‘break-the-chain’ drive, we have started relaxing the lockdown restrictions to a certain extent. In the coming days, we will consider the five-level unlock plan prepared by the State Disaster Management Authority. For the purpose, parameters to decide on the weekly positivity rate and Oxygen bed availability.
Based on these, the state government will come out with comprehensive guidelines on whether to relax or make restrictions more stringent,” the CMO had said.