Bihar Govt announces lockdown till July 31; exemptions for essential services

With the sharp rise in COVID-19 positive cases, the Government of Bihar has decided to implement a complete lockdown in the state from July 16-31 with certain exemptions.

The decision was taken in a high-level meeting of the Crisis Management group convened by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Chief Secretary, DGP, Principal Secretary Disaster Management, and Health and few other senior officials. The Committee decided to implement lockdown in view of the rise in positive cases and with Coronavirus infecting senior Government officials,  Ministers, MLAs, Directors, and Politicians.

Secretary IPRD Anupam Kumar said, "During the lockdown, no political, religious gathering will take place. All educational institutions, private offices shall remain closed. In cities, auto, taxi and hand rickshaw can ply. Goods transport can ply. Dhabas on highways will remain open but only takeaways will be allowed. As per the Government of India Guidelines, train and flight services will be operational. Buses will not commute and all districts will be sealed."

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Recently few staff in the Chief Ministers Residence and personal staffs and private secretary of Deputy CM Sushil Modi got infected. With many Government officials, politicians, doctors getting infected the Government pressed the panic button and ordered for complete lockdown.

With the threat of Coronavirus spreading to the community level in Bihar, the election commission may find it tough to hold the Bihar Assembly polls on schedule. 

Of late there has been a sharp rise in the number of positive cases in Bihar with 1116 new cases being reported in the past 24 hours. So far 17421 positive cases have been reported in Bihar out of which 12364 cases have recovered and there are 4922 active cases. The recovery rate of Bihar is 70.97%. So far 134 people have died due to Coronavirus in Bihar.

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