Bengal lockdown till May 30
Restrictions tightened; Announcement comes after Covid-19 claims life of Mamata’s younger brother
Kolkata: West Bengal will
go under a complete lockdown from Sunday
till May 30, the state government announced, as it put in place a host of stringent measures to
curb the spread of COVID-19, including prohibiting vehicular movement and disallowing all
kinds of gathering.
West Bengal is finally entering another phase of lockdown from Sunday for the next two weeks till May 30 as the second wave of Covid-19 struck chief minister Mamata Banerjee's family. Ms Banerjee's brother Ashim Banerjee, who was undergoing treatment for Covid-19 at a hospital here, died on Saturday morning. West Bengal reported 144 new deaths and 19,511 fresh cases of Covid-19 infection in the last 24 hours.
State chief secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay announced at the state secretariat Nabanna on Saturday that the latest curbs in view of the surge in Covid-19 cases would be enforced from 6 am on May 16 to 6 pm on May 30 during which all government offices and private establishments and schools/colleges/universities/polytechnics/ITI/ anganwadi centres and other educational/academic institutions would remain shut except those relating to a list of emergency and essential services including the judiciary and health. Among others, parks, zoos, sanctuaries, all intra-state local trains, metro railway and intrastate bus services and inland water transport, movement of private vehicles, taxis and autorickshaws, all intra-state movement of trucks and goods carriers and all industries and manufacturing units will remain closed.
All administrative, academic, entertainment, political, cultural and religious gatherings, groupings and congregations and all outdoor activities — between 9 pm to 5 am — including the movement of people and vehicles have been further strictly prohibited. Retail shops and supplies, bazaars and haats, which were allowed to be run in two phases a day earlier, will remain open between 7 and 10 am only.
Operations in tea gardens and jute mills will however continue with 50% and 30% of the total strength of each shift. Mr Bandyopadhyay later informed that the secondary and higher secondary examinations at the school level, scheduled in the first and second half of June, have also been postponed as of now. This indicates the state government's plan for a stricter degree of lockdown next month onwards. Early in the morning Asim Banerjee alias Kali, one of the brothers of the Trinamul Congress supremo who used to live along with her at Harish Chatterjee Street in Kalighat, died at a private hospital off EM Bypass in the city.
(Left) People, including migrant workers rush to board in a bus to leave the city, hours before the lockdown,after West Bengal Government announced complete lockdown till
30th May due to surge in Coronavirus cases in Kolkataon saturday. — PTI