State not to relax lockdown

21/04/2020

Officials present at the meeting also cited the decisions taken by governments of Delhi, Karnataka, Punjab, Telangana, Maharashtra and Gujarat to continue with the lockdown.

On Monday evening, the State government issued a G.O. to the effect that all restrictions mentioned in the Revenue Department G.O. dated March 25 (G.O. No. 193) would prevail and the G.O. issued on April 15 (G.O. No. 172) would not be applicable in Tamil Nadu. "On April 15, the State government merely endorsed all the guidelines issued by the Centre, which allowed select activities that were to be allowed after April 20. The fresh G.O. will not allow those activities," sources said.

Since the lockdown had been imposed under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the SDMA was to decide on whether to continue with it. Though the expert committee was constituted to generate suggestions on the way forward after April 20 and the "strategy to take measures in the post-lockdown period", there was no talk on the latter. "On Monday morning, the immediate issue to be considered was a decision on relaxation, which was not difficult to take. With the prevailing conditions, it was an open and shut case," a senior official said.