Indian states on Sunday began identifying high-risk zones where coronavirus lockdowns should continue while the rest of country gears up to reopen in June despite a record rise in COVID-19 cases, officials said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has extended lockdown until June 30 in so-called containment zones that should remain under lockdown because they continue to report a high number of infections.
But restaurants, malls and religious buildings are permitted to reopen elsewhere from June 8 as India loosens the world’s longest lockdown to curb the spread of the spread of the pandemic.
India has reported 182,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 5,164 deaths.
In Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, a health official said 1,111 containment zones has been identified, while authorities in the western Gujarat state said that more than 400,000 houses were marked as high-risk zones.
Officials in the western state of Maharastra said all markets, except malls and congested spaces, will be allowed to function in a staggered manner.
The eastern state of West Bengal identified 285 containment zones in its capital, Kolkata.
In a radio address to the nation on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned citizens to remain vigilant.
“The fight against the coronavirus is intense, we cannot drop our guard,” he said.
The number of cases reached a daily record high in the past 48 hours, two months after the federal government enforced a rigid lockdown to stop the pandemic from spreading in a country of more than 1.3 billion people.
Critics said Modi had now left states with the responsibility of establishing rules to contain the virus.
Efforts to contain the disease saw the shutdown of virtually all economic activity in late March, putting hundreds of millions out of work almost overnight.
Millions of migrant workers fled home to their villages, many of them walking hundreds of kilometres and some dying on the way.
Modi conceded that much of the country had since “undergone tremendous suffering” in an open letter to the public on Saturday.
The end of the lockdown will be staged and for now will not include some containment zones where high infection rates have been detected, according to the home ministry.
Schools and universities will resume classes after discussions with Indian state authorities, with a decision due in July.
The ministry said that international air travel, mass transit, cinemas, swimming pools and bars will remain closed for the time being.
Sport is still on hold, with the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament yet to resume after it was postponed last month, and political and religious events with “large congregations”.
The nationwide evening curfew was also eased and will now begin two hours later at 9:00 pm.
No movement in or out of containment zones will be allowed, with exceptions for medical emergencies and the supply of essential goods and services.
In these areas there will be “intensive contact tracing, house-to-house surveillance and other clinical interventions,” the ministry said.
Government data released Friday gave an indication of the preliminary toll of the lockdown on Asia’s third-biggest economy, which grew at its slowest pace in at least two decades last quarter.
The period included only the very beginning of the national quarantine, and analysts say a massive slowdown has taken place since.
Modi’s government had already taken some steps to ease the economic pain of the lockdown.
Factory and farm operations were allowed to resume in areas with no or few cases — although many are finding problems sourcing workers.
Domestic flights also resumed earlier this month and some trains are running on India’s vast rail network.
Earlier this month Modi announced a $266 billion package -– 10 percent of the country’s GDP –- to revive the battered economy.
