Maha govt: Only Municipal Commissioner & District Collector can regulate markets and shops

On Tuesday, the Maharashtra government issued clarification pertaining to the new lockdown guidelines. Contending that it was very essential to ensure the smooth availability of supplies, Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta noted that restricting the timings and days of markets and shops was proving to be "counter-productive". He stated that this was leading to more crowding owing to uncertainty. Thus, Mehta ruled that all operational markets and shops as per the guidelines shall be allowed to remain open without any restrictions such as timing and days.

However, the Municipal Commissioners of Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Pune Metropolitan Region, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Nashik, and the Collectors of other districts shall have the power to restrict the functioning of markets and shops. Additionally, the Maharashtra government specified that the boundaries of containment zones in the states can be altered only by the Municipal Commissioners or District Collectors. All district authorities have been directed to facilitate the Municipal Commissioners and District Collectors to discharge the responsibilities regarding the aforesaid matters. 

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Rise in Maharashtra's COVID-19 cases

71 new COVID-19 patients were reported in Maharashtra on Monday, May 4 propelling the state's COVID-19 tally to 14,541. Mumbai accounts for a huge share of the state's COVID-19 crisis with 9,310 cases and 361 casualties. In a positive development, 350 patients were discharged from the hospital in the day, taking the total number of recovered to 2,465.

Moreover, 35 more patients- 18 from Mumbai, 7 from Pune, 5 from Akola, and one from Solapur, Thane, Aurangabad, and Thane passed away owing to the novel coronavirus. Thus, the state has recorded 583 COVID-19 deaths so far. While 1,98,042 persons are in home quarantine, 13,006 others have been admitted to institutional quarantine centres.

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Currently, there are 46,711 confirmed novel coronavirus cases in India out of which 13,161 persons have recovered while 1583 deaths have been reported. Addressing a press briefing earlier in the day, Lav Aggarwal- the Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health stated that 3900 COVID-19 cases and 195 casualties were reported in the last 24 hours. Furthermore, 1020 persons recovered from the novel coronavirus in the same period, taking the COVID-19 recovery rate to 27.41%. 

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