Bhopal streets wear a deserted look during a night curfew (File photo)
All urban areas of Madhya Pradesh will go into a lockdown from 6 pm tomorrow to 6 am on Monday in a move to control the steep surge in coronavirus cases in the state.
"A lockdown will be enforced in all cities of the state from 6 pm on Friday to 6 am on Monday," Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said.
He also added that "appropriate action" will be taken for cities with rising cases after a meeting.
"For cities where cases have increased, appropriate action will be taken after a meeting of crisis management group. We are making containment areas in big cities," news agency ANI reported Mr Chouhan as saying.
"In view of the pandemic, use face masks, maintain social distancing and sanitise hands frequently... Not getting infected with coronavirus is the biggest service towards the state today," the Chief Minister's Office tweeted in Hindi.
In the past three weeks, the state government imposed lockdowns in Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur and Gwalior on Sundays and extended the curbs to some other cities last Sunday.
The weekend-long curfew comes as fresh infections continue to explode - the state reported over 4,000 cases in the last 24 hours taking the total tally to over 3.18 lakh.
Indore and Bhopal - the biggest cities in the state - continue to record the highest daily spike in cases.
With 866 new cases on Wednesday, Indore's tally went up to 74,895 while that of Bhopal rose to 55,255 with the addition of 618 cases. Indore now has 6,281 active cases while Bhopal has 4,681.
Over 4,000 people have died in the state due to the deadly disease while nearly 2.88 lakh have recovered.
The state is also working to have more containment zones that will be strictly sealed in cities with a spike in cases, Mr Chouhan said.
The Indore District Administration has also banned planned surgeries at government and private hospitals due to the pandemic. Only emergency surgeries will be allowed until further orders.
The state has also been working to have one lakh Covid-dedicated beds at hospitals and care centres.
A massive surge in infections over the past few weeks across the country saw the biggest-ever daily surge of more than a lakh on Monday. India reported over 1.26 lakh new cases in 24 hours today setting an unprecedented, grim record during the second wave. The total number of infections is now over 1.28 crore.
The government has said the next four weeks are "very, very critical". The nationwide vaccination programme has now been widened to people above 60 and those over 45 with other illnesses.