NEW DELHI, June 13: As India registered 80,834 daily new cases in the last 24 hours till Sunday morning, the lowest since April 1 when the second wave started sweeping the country, more states across India has gradually started opening up after stringent lockdown.
While Delhi announced near-normal situation from Monday allowing all shops and even restaurants and shopping malls to open, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin announced more relaxations in 27 districts which included allowing tea shops to reopen from June 14. Barring 11 districts, seven in western and four in Cauvery delta regions respectively, the fresh relaxations would be applicable in the rest of 27 districts including Chennai and other nearby districts.
The Assam government asked all its employees who have received two doses of vaccine to join offices from Monday even as a partial lockdown across the state will continue to be in force.
People throng markets as Delhi eases restrictions. Easing Delhi’s lockdown even further, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced that from Monday at 5 AM all restaurants in the national capital would be allowed to open at 50% seating capacity. All market complexes, malls in Delhi will now be allowed to open from 10 am to 8 pm.
“After 5 am tomorrow, all activities will be allowed except some activities that will be prohibited and some activities that will be done in a restricted manner. A detailed order will be issued,” Kejriwal said. The public transport services including the metro rail would also resume operations from Monday. However, gyms and swimming pools would not reopen. The religious centres would re-open but only with restricted entries of the devotees.
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council on Saturday cut rates on Covid-related medicines, oxygen concentrators and testing kits from 12 to five per cent but kept the rate for vaccines unchanged at 5%.
India registered 80,834 new Covid-19 cases and 3,303 deaths in the last 24 hours. Top five states which have registered maximum cases are Tamil Nadu with 15,108 cases, followed by Kerala with 13,832 cases, Maharashtra with 10,697 cases, Karnataka with 9,785 cases and Andhra Pradesh with 6,952 cases. At least 69.74% of the new cases are reported from these five states, with Tamil Nadu alone responsible for 18.69% of the new cases.
Maximum deaths were reported in Maharashtra (1,966), followed by Tamil Nadu with 374 daily deaths.
In the last 24 hours, active cases declined by 54,531, bringing the active caseload to 10,26,159.
A total of 1,32,062 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, which brings the total recoveries to 2,80,43,446 across the country.
India has administered a total of 34,84,239 doses in the last 24 hours, which brings the total tally of doses administered to 25,31,95,048.
In Madhya Pradesh, about 5,000 Pakistani refugees from the Hindu Sindhi community living in Indore would be administered vaccines, an official said on Sunday. The representatives of the Pakistani refugees from the Hindu Sindhi community had recently requested the administration for anti- coronavirus inoculation, District Immunization Officer Dr Praveen Jadia said. “This demand has been accepted following the state government’s approval. These Pakistani refugees will now be able to receive anti-coronavirus jabs at the city’s vaccination centres by showing their passport as the identity card,” he said. –
The Assam government on Sunday asked all its employees who have received two doses of COVID- 19 vaccine to join offices from Monday even as a partial lockdown across the state will be in force. The General Administration Department Commissioner and Secretary M S Manivannan issued an order and said the decision had been taken for the smooth functioning of the government offices. “In order to ensure smooth functioning of government offices, all the employees of Government of Assam who have received both the doses of COVID-19 vaccine are hereby directed to attend office from 14/06/2021 regularly,” he added.
(Manas Dasgupta)
