No lockdown of any kind: CM KCR

Lockdown in Telangana: Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday ruled out the possibility of any kind of lockdown; total or weekend lockdown.

At his first review meeting on the Covid-19 situation in the State after returning to Pragathi Bhavan following his recovery from coronavirus, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao felt that the lockdown was no solution to contain the novel coronavirus.

He said that Hyderabad being the most happening city, 25 to 30 lakh people from outside were employed here and most of them are daily wage-earners. They had faced severe problems during the national lockdown that was imposed during the first wave. "If they get dislocated again, it would become difficult to bring them back and this would affect various sectors including the real estate," he said.

"The farmers were in the midst of selling their agricultural produce in 6,144 villages where centres have been opened. This requires large scale hamali labour as well. There are thousands of labour who had come from other States and are working at various places like purchase counters to loading and unloading of trucks and different godowns. If the lockdown was imposed the entire economic activity would come to a standstill," he said.

Any such step would also affect the movement of milk, vegetables and other essential commodities. On the top of it the vaccination programme would also be adversely impacted would lead to major crisis in the state and hence the government has decided not to impose any kind of lockdown, the CMO said. However, in areas where Covid-19 cases were on the rise, micro-containment zones would be created to check further surge.

He appealed to people to cooperate in following health protocols by wearing masks properly and maintain social distancing. He also praised the yeomen services of doctors, paramedical staff and Asa workers. KCR earlier spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the phone and explained to him about the measures the government was taking to contain the virus.

He urged Modi to help in augmenting the supply of Remdesivir, and send more quota of vaccine, and oxygen. He complained that the State was not getting oxygen from Sri Perumbadur and Bellary in Karnataka. He informed the PM that the medical infrastructure in the State came under pressure because Hyderabad had emerged as the medical hub of India and many Covid patients were using air ambulances to take treatment here. He said that was one of the reasons for shortage of beds, oxygen and Remdesivir.

KCR said that the PM has assured that the Centre would help the state. He also said that oxygen would be supplied to the state from Eastern states instead of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.