GoM Headed By Rajnath Singh To Meet On Saturday, Discuss Lockdown Exit

Coronavirus: GoM headed by Rajnath Singh has held five meetings so far (File)

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will chair a Group of Ministers (GoM) meeting on Saturday morning to review coronavirus lockdown exit strategies, the government said this evening. This will be the sixth meeting of the GoM headed by Mr Singh, which will submit recommendations on phased lifting of restrictions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The GoM held its fifth meeting on April 18, in which "ways to mitigate the hardships faced by the people and the role ministries can play in providing relief to people" were discussed.

India is currently in an extended lockdown to break the COVID-19 chain of transmission. The lockdown, which the government has said has helped to slow the rate of infection, is scheduled to end May 3. It is unclear, at this time, if the government will extend the lockdown for a second time.

Earlier today the Prime Minister and Home Minister Amit Shah met Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to also discuss post-lockdown strategies. Restarting the struggling aviation sector, which has been grounded since the lockdown, was a top agenda of the meeting.

PM Modi's meeting today followed one with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Mr Goyal on Friday, to discuss ways to attract foreign investment and boost a struggling national economy.

Earlier this week the Home Ministry said new guidelines will be released that will give least-affected districts considerable relaxation in resuming economic activities and normal life. However, the ministry also cautioned that "red zones", or areas with districts contributing over 80 per cent of cases for that state, would continue to be locked down.

According to data released by the Health Ministry this week, the number of "red zones", or districts with over 15 COVID-19 cases, has fallen by around 23 per cent between April 15 and April 30.

While this is good news, a decrease in the number of "green zones", or virus-free districts, suggests the virus is spreading, albeit with reduced intensity, to previously unaffected areas.

Meanwhile, in a major change to criteria governing coronavirus hotspot classification, the government will now label a district "green", or virus-free, if no new cases are reported in a 21-day period.

Previously an infection-free period of 28 days was required to re-classify a district from "red", or an area with over 15 COVID-19 cases, to "green", an area with no new cases.

This morning India recorded its biggest single-day spike in new coronavirus cases, with 1,993 being reported in the past 24 hours; this includes 73 deaths. The total number of cases in the country has crossed 35,000 with 1,147 deaths linked to the virus.