PM Modi To Interact With CMs Today On Lockdown Exit Plan

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to interact with chief ministers of all states on Monday at 3 pm. This will be PM Modi's fifth interaction via video-conference with chief ministers of various states during the current lockdown imposed in the wake of coronavirus outbreak across the country.

Home Minister Amit Shah and Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr Harsh Vardhan are expected to attend the meeting. State chief secretaries and DGPs are also scheduled to be present at the Prime Minister's video-conference.

PM Modi is likely to discuss an exit strategy for lockdown 3.0 with the chief ministers. It is likely that the Centre and states will arrive at a consensus regarding graded exit out of the ongoing lockdown.

The Prime Minister is likely to discuss ways of bringing more red zones with a high caseload of coronavirus positive patients into orange zones, and eventually into green zones. It is highly unlikely that all restrictions will be lifted at one go, but many relaxations could be brought in. It is also likely that lockdown restrictions could be restricted to containment zones alone.

Several states are urging the Centre to ease lockdown restrictions so that economic activity can be resumed. Delhi is reported to be one such state. Delhi has reported a total number of 6542 COVID-19 cases with 73 deaths. Chhattisgarh has also called for greater relaxation of lockdown norms. The state has so far reported 59 confirmed cases of Coronavirus and has had zero fatalities.

States are also expected to seek an economic stimulus from the Centre to reboot the economy.