by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
PM To hold meet with CMs on Lock down on April 11
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, April 8
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will start the process of holding extensive consultations with Chief Ministers of states and union territories on April 11, Saturday.
Highly placed sources in the Prime Minister’s Office say this second interaction with the CMs will enable the government to take a final call on extending the country-wide lockdown or resort to easing of some of the restrictions.
The meeting with the Chief Ministers will be held through the video conference as was done earlier. The President and Vice President had also interacted with the Governors, Lieutenant Governors and administrators of Union Territories to directly assess the ground-level situation.
Since many states have advocated continuing the lock-down in the wake of mounting Covid-19 cases and results of large scale testing still in the pipeline, the most vulnerable states do not want to risk human lives. All agriculture related activities in states including of farm labour have already been permitted by the Central government. The Prime Minister is likely to obtain the views of the Chief Ministers about a way forward after April 14. In the last meeting the PM had sought the suggestions of the CMs on lifting the lockdown in a partial/staggered manner. Since many chief ministers have already expressed their views on the subject, the PM wants them to update the Centre their “final view” about the next course of action after April 14.
Sources say the government is exploring the reopening of certain sectors in a phased manner with huge restrictions. But it has not made up its mind and wants to take a decision only after consulting the states. It is also pointed out that some of the state including Punjab had imposed lock-down even before the PM’s announcement of lockdown on March 24. Capt. Amrinder Singh, Punjab Chief Minister, is on record to say that he will review the continuation of lock-down on April 10th evening. It is likely that all Chief Ministers will undertake a review in their own states and apprise the Centre on April 11.
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