Home Ministry Extends Lockdown By Two Weeks Till 17 May, Here’s All You Need To Know

The Home Ministry on Friday evening (1 May) issued a press release extending the lockdown by two additional weeks effective 4 May. This means that the lockdown imposed under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 will remain in place till 17 May.

As per the press release, activities will be regulated in the lockdown period after the profiling of districts falling under Green, Orange and Red Zones. The release adds that the fresh guidelines issued by the Home Ministry give considerable relaxations in the Green and Orange zones.

Districts with zero cases or no fresh case in the last 21 days will be characterised as Green Zones and Red Zones will be classified based on active cases, doubling rate, testing and surveillance feedback. The districts which neither fall under Green or Red zones will be classified as Orange.

The Home Ministry will share a list of this classification every week. States are permitted to classify new red or orange districts but are not permitted to upgrade their classification to either orange or green.

The containment zones in the Red and Orange districts will be defined by the district administration and people will not be allowed to either come in or go out of these zones except for medical emergencies. All the residents in the containment zones will have to install the Aarogya Setu app.

Certain activities will remain prohibited in the country irrespective of zones like air, rail, metro and inter-state road travel. All education institutions, cinema halls, gyms, sporting arenas, social and religious gathering will remain shut.

Movement of individuals for non-essential activity will remain prohibited from 7 PM to 7 AM. Kids aged below 10 years, elderly aged above 65 years, pregnant women and people with co-morbidity will have to stay at home irrespective of the zones they reside in.

Here’s the whole list of fresh guidelines issued by Home Ministry.