No plan to extend 21-day lockdown, says Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba
New Delhi: The Prasar Bharati News Service, India’s public broadcaster, has said that reports claiming that the government may further extend the 21-day nationwide lockdown are false.
Referring to a report carrying the headline Modi govt could extend coronavirus lockdown by a week as migrant exodus triggers alarm’, Prasar Bharati said the news is fake.
In a tweet on Monday, PBNS said, PBNS got in touch with the Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba on this news article, “The Cabinet Secretary expressed surprise and said that there is no such plan of extending the lockdown.”
After a day’s Janata Curfew on March 22, Prime Minister Modi on March 24 announced a countrywide lockdown from March 25 for a period of 3 weeks.
The nationwide lockdown will continue till April 14.
The lockdown has stopped all public transport, any non-essential movement outside the house while all shops and services that are not essential for survival during the coronavirus pandemic has also been suspended.
With work and livelihood coming to an abrupt halt, thousands of migrant workers who worked as daily wagers in Delhi, Mumbai and other big cities started journeying towards their native villages in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and other states.
With hundreds and thousands of kilometres to be travelled these workers took to the highways amid the lockdown that has restricted outdoor movement.
As the state governments in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh scrambled to deal with the massive exodus of migrant labourers, thousands gathered at bus stations in Delhi-NCR to get home.
The massive gatherings have posed a huge risk to the purpose of lockdown which aims to increase social distancing and stop the spread of coronavirus.
So far, India has recorded over 1,100 coronavirus cases with the death toll crossing 25. Worldwide, coronavirus has claimed over 30,000 lives.