PASSING MANTLE TO STATES

The final week of Lockdown 3.0 begun on a rather high deliberative note. The fifth meeting between chief ministers and the prime minister took place to broadly decide contours of the way ahead. A popular argument that stems from the meeting is the exercise of greater autonomy by states in the next phase of the

lockdown. Till now, the Centre has steered the country, unilaterally issuing guidelines for restrictions which states have diligently followed. The one-size-fits-all approach had however underlined a glaring flaw — not all states and not all districts have been equally affected. In fact, a rather microscopic view would reveal that even districts affected have localised pockets that require restrictions. But the uncertainty in how the virus travelled demanded comprehensive curbs. Still, the Union improvised and categorically issued relaxations in the subsequent phases of the lockdown but the approach continued to be a top-to-down one wherein states are expected to comply. Such an approach has largely curtailed states’ ability to improvise. Lockdown 3.0 brought colour-coding of districts as the central approach for a calibrated exit. The idea was simple: distinguishing districts based on active cases (red zone), no cases for 14 days (orange zone) and no cases for 28 days or none at all (green zone). But the implementation was rather questionable. When the first list of such colour coding was released, states raised a variety of objections. It would have been a better exercise if the states were given the task of colour coding districts. There was another concern. Even one active case in a district made the entire district a red zone as per norms. This is rather brutal, especially for

large districts. Containment zones have been drawn based on active cases, and sealed off accordingly. Despite containment zones, the entire district falls under the red zone and thus cannot yield benefits that orange or green zones can. For instance, Delhi had all of its 11 districts in the red zone which were further classified into around 90 containment zones. The 90 containment zones meant that the entire NCT of Delhi has to comply by the strict norms of the red zone which, in turn, meant that Delhi cannot resume lives & livelihoods as orange and green zones in other states could. This is where the need for tweaking colour coding norms arises. And, as such, states appear better equipped to re-draw their disease maps based on local data and economic peculiarities. Take Kerala as an example. The southern state’s measures to contain the spread and treat those infected has been the best in the country. Yet, Kerala was largely restricted from pioneering an exit strategy that was crafted based on its own experience, much to state’s disappointment. No wonder Kerala CM voiced his discontent in the fifth CM meet by saying how “states face different challenges and therefore should be given the freedom to make reasonable changes to the guidelines relating to the lockdown”.

A state-specific approach built on Union’s basic guidelines would be a rather prudent way forward in Lockdown 4.0. With the realisation that coronavirus will be part of our lives for some time, the focus has to be on each state’s healthcare infrastructure as well as societal discipline to abide by the dynamic guidelines as the calendar proceeds. Exit strategies may be differ from state to state but the objective of resuming livelihoods remains the same. It shall be here that India’s federal polity takes the driver seat and provides for an aggregate picture of improvement in the coming weeks. The national lockdown in three phases has made the country understand the severity of the crisis it faces. Factoring in the varying degree of impact and response, the Union should delegate the rudder to states. Taking a supervisory role, it should, however, intervene if there is no improvement in states’ situation or rather a deterioration.