Rescinding its previous order of weekend restrictions under which business establishments remained closed on Saturdays and Sundays, the Uttar Pradesh government has announced that now shops will remain closed only on Sundays across the state.
The announcement was made by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath while holding a meeting with senior officials here on Tuesday.
“All the markets and business establishments will open for 12 hours, from 9 in the morning to 9 in the evening, and Sunday will be the weekly closure day,” the chief minister said, hinting at the possibility of the government withdrawing the weekend lockdown.
Only a day earlier, the UP government had decided to continue with the weekend restrictions from 2200 hours of Friday to 0500 hours of Monday while declaring the guidelines for Unlock. 4.0 despite the Union government having asked states not to go for lockdown without its permission.
Later Chief Secretary RK Tiwari issued guidelines saying that the business establishments would remain closed from Saturday midnight to Sunday midnight during which sanitation drive would be carried out across the state.
The directives say that all haats, shops and weekly markets will remain closed on Sunday, but the train services, inter-state and intra-state buses will be allowed to ply. Those markets which open on Sundays should be allowed to open on any other day between Monday and Saturday, the guideline said.
“The industrial units, the construction of highways and essential services will operate on Sunday with Covid guidelines. The surveillance teams will also work on Sunday and those employees who work in essential services department should be allowed movement by showing their ID cards,” the chief secretary said.
The chief minister, who was holding his regular Unlock meeting with his Team 11 here, directed that the Unlock 4.0 guidelines be enforced strictly.
He said that increasing the number of Covid tests was the only way to control the spread of the novel coronavirus until a vaccine was developed.
Expressing concern over the spike in coronavirus positive cases in Lucknow and Kanpur Nagar, the chief minister directed the Health Department to go for micro analysis to prepare a strategy to counter the virus. He also suggested that a team of doctors be formed in Lucknow to give consultation to the patients on online platform.
The chief minister also ordered extensive contact tracing, surveillance and door-to-door tracking of people with symptoms and said that the district authorities, including the district magistrate and chief medical officer, should sit twice a day to review the Covid situation in their district.
He also asked the officials to accelerate developmental works in their area and solve the problems of investors and industrialists so that their units could function smoothly.
“The officials should regularly monitor the revenue collection and keep a track on the goods and services tax (GST) realisation so that there is no dearth of funds for development and welfare works,” he said.