State govt orders restrictions on several activities for 14 days

LUCKNOW: Chief secretary RK Tiwari on Thursday issued a government order for Covid containment seeking the districts’ administration to ban social, political, sports, entertainment, academic, cultural and religious activities at least for the next 14 days.

The order came following the guidelines that the central government issued on Monday.

Tiwari said weddings should be permitted with not more than 50 guests and the last rites must not have more than 20 people. All shopping complexes, cinema halls, restaurant and bars, sports complexes, gyms, spas, swimming pools and religious places should also be closed, the order added. Although the government has not used the term lockdown, the instructions issued by Tiwari are similar to many of those in force last year.

In a statement, Tiwari said all essential services such as health, police, fire services, banks, power, water and irrigation will continue. Public transport such as buses, metro trains and cabs should run at not more than 50% of their seating capacity, the chief secretary’s order said.

There will be no restriction on the movement of inter-state transport and intra-state transport. All offices —government or private — must work with not more than 50% employees on the premises. All industrial and scientific institutes, government or private, will follow social distancing. Tiwari sought the state administration to take effective steps to prevent the Covid spread. Because the virus spread from human-to human contact, there was a need to effectively control it by restricting human contact, he added.

He asked the administration to ensure Covid appropriate behaviour to be implemented.

“So, all must wear masks, maintain six feet distance, do hand sanitization and prevent crowding,” he said. Any person suspected to be a Covid-19 case should immediately be tested and quarantined if they were found positive, he added.

He said if there was a cluster of Covid positive cases, it must immediately be declared a containment zone and all SOPs should be followed there. Such zones must physically be contained (like barricading etc).

Tiwari said that test, track, treat, and vaccinate policy will be followed statewide. All these restrictions will be applicable till the next 14 days. He has asked the additional chief secretaries of revenue, panchayati raj and rural development departments, all divisional commissioners, all ADGs, all IGs, the police commissioners of Lucknow, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Kanpur and Varanasi, and all CMOs to implement the restrictions strictly.