India under a lockdown

New Delhi: The Union government on Sunday placed nearly all of urban India under a lockdown, shutting down major cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad as it placed restrictions in 75 coronavirus-affected districts across the country.

Other than the lockdown in 75 districts across India announced by the Centre, 12 state governments also announced similar measures at their levels.

These include Maharashtra, Kerala, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab, Delhi, Nagaland and Rajasthan. The Centre's list of 75 districts includes 11 Maharashtra districts and 10 districts from Kerala.

Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary Luv Agrawal, during a press conference on Sunday, advised districts, from where Covid-19 cases have been reported, to call for a lockdown.

However, he said, groceries, fire services, food and milk should be made available to the people. He said that states must decide on essential services.

The districts where lockdown was announced are from states that include Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

At a high-level meeting of the Union Health Ministry, all the Chief Secretaries informed that there was an overwhelming and spontaneous response to the call for 'Janata Curfew' given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The state governments may expand the list depending on their assessment of the situation.

Three fresh death cases were reported in the country on Sunday as the nation observed Janata Curfew in a bid to tackle the spread of the disease.

The three cases, one from Bihar, one from Gujarat and another from Maharashtra took the countrywide toll to 7. Total positive cases in India jumped to 370, including 24 recovered cases and 7 death cases.

In the meeting, it was decided to suspend all train services till March 31, including suburban rail services. However, goods trains are exempted. All metro rail services were also suspended till March 31.

There is a lockdown situation in Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon and Ghaziabad, from where novel coronavirus positive cases have been reported.

Section 144 was imposed in Maharashtra and Delhi, authorities announced that metro services across the nation will be suspended till March 31 in a bid to contain the virus spread.

These lockdowns are the latest in an expanding COVID-19 government response which included travel restrictions, issuing protocols, guidelines, and advisories, providing testing, establishing isolation and quarantine centres and setting aside hospital and ICU beds.

While the initiative is commendable, there have been concerns around decisional delays and a lack of clear communication and transparency.