Complete lockdown would be observed in the state on September 7,11 and 12 as announced earlier
Pranesh Sarkar, Calcutta: The Bengal government on Monday issued a notification to clarify that complete lockdown would be observed in the state on September 7,11 and 12 as announced earlier.
The notification, a source said, was issued to clear the confusion created after the Centre’s Unlock 4 guidelines — to come into effect from September 1 — that bar any state from announcing a lockdown outside its containment zones without consulting the Centre.
Sources in Nabanna said top government officials discussed Bengal’s proposed lockdown days in September with the ministry of home affairs on Monday morning after an approval from chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Top bureaucrats convinced the Centre that complete lockdown on certain days across Bengal helped the state in containing the spread of Covid 19 to some extent. It was also pointed out that three complete lockdown dates in September would help the state arrest the spread, sources said.
“We followed the protocol,” a senior state government official told media.
The state government, sources said, presented a set of numbers to establish this claim of occasional lockdown days arresting the spread of Covid-19 in Bengal.
The sources said that the state compared figures of daily positive cases between the last week of July, from when the state started observing complete lockdown on certain dates, with the last week of August to establish that complete lockdown on certain days in the past month helped the state contain the spread of Covid-19.
On 23 July, the daily positive case in Calcutta was 795 and the total number for the state was 2,436. On August 30, the daily positive case in Calcutta came down to 428 and the total positive cases for the entire state on that day was 3,019.
“While the number of daily positive cases have come down significantly in Calcutta, the daily positive cases did not jump out of proportion despite the fact that the number of tests witnessed a three-fold jump by this period (from 14,558 to 43,436 per day). The Centre agreed to give a go-ahead with the announced complete lockdown days in September,” said a source.
The state government also mentioned in its notification that on the complete lockdown days in September, no passenger flight and train would be allowed to operate.
The state’s notification on Monday also said that schools, colleges, educational and coaching institutions would remain closed till September 30. In addition, cinema halls, swimming pools, entertainment parks and theatres would also remain closed till September 30.
The state has announced that open-air theatres would reopen from September 21 and Metro Railway services in a graded manner from September 8. Source: The Telegraph
