India Lockdown Day 2: Many States Impose Curfew; FM Announces Relief Measures
PM Modi interacting with representives of the media on COVID-19.
New Delhi: Day two of the lockdown in India saw many states taking the Centre’s advice to impose curfew, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing economic relief measures, and the governments – Central and state –scrambling to ensure public health infrastructure is in place, in case number of COVID-19 cases witness a spike.
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus infected people, as on Tuesday evening, rose to 519, with active cases standing at 470, the Health Ministry said. With the death of a 65-year old in Maharashtra, the total death toll in the country has reached 10.
Fresh cases were reported throughout the day from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh among others. With a 23-year old, who returned from United Kingdom, Manipur also reported the first confirmed case of coronavirus infection in the Northeast on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, state-wide indefinite curfew was imposed in Himachal Pradesh and Manipur, a day after similar measures were taken by state governments of Punjab, Maharashtra and Puducherry.
As many major cities wore a deserted look for the second day, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman extended the deadline for filing the income tax return for Financial Year 2018-19 to June 30.
Among other measures to help citizens to deal with the lockdown, Sitharaman announced waiver of minimum bank charges for savings bank accounts and no charge for three months on cash withdrawals from any other bank ATM for debit card holders.
Meanwhile, the plight of migrant workers stranded in various places continued to draw attention, with many of them unable to commute to their homes in Bihar and other places due to lack of transportation, as well as unable to buy food as they had run out of money. The government is yet to declare any kind of package for migrants rendered jobless overnight due to the lockdown.
At 8 p.m on the second day of the lockdown, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation on the coronavirus outbreak.
Live blog
Get the latest reports & analysis with people's perspective on Protests, movements & deep analytical videos, discussions of the current affairs in your Telegram app. Subscribe to NewsClick's Telegram channel & get Real-Time updates on stories, as they get published on our website.
