Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on Friday rejected Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's proposal to lift weekend curfew and fully open markets in the national capital.
However, private offices have now been allowed to function with 50% attendance. The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) issued a fresh order making it clear that night curfew and weekend curfew will continue as per the existing guidelines.
While it did not comment on refusal to lift weekend curfew, the Delhi government issued a statement describing as “unfortunate” the rejection of the proposal to open markets.
“It is unfortunate that LG has rejected the strong demand of traders and the business community. LG has rejected the proposal of the elected government despite the fact that corona cases are reducing at a very fast pace. When all markets of Gurugram and Noida are open, why should the business community of Delhi be made to suffer by BJP’s Central government,” it said.
Kejriwal has earlier sent a proposal to lift the weekend curfew and reduce other Covid-19 related curbs. The proposal also included ending the system of odd-even in the opening of shops in markets and allowing all shops to open as well as allowing private offices to run with 50% capacity.
Explaining the rationale of the proposals, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the peak of Covid-19 cases has passed and the cases were declining considerably.
He said that the curbs were initially put in place after the cases started rising in the capital earlier this month.
"On January 12, the capital reported the highest number of cases of this Covid season, which was nearly 28,000. About 8-10 days back, the positivity rate was around 31%, but now it has come down to 17%. Seeing the current graph of cases, we are currently in the situation to relax restrictions. On Friday, Delhi reported around 10,500 cases," he said.
"Now that the cases are coming down, it would be wrong to restrict people from moving out to earn for their survival. We are in a position where we can relax Covid-19 restrictions now. Businesses across the city have already suffered huge losses due to previous waves. We have started getting good news about declining positivity rates and Covid-19 cases," he said earlier in the day.
He said the weekend curfew and odd-even system in markets, as well as private offices to run fully on work from home mode, have helped in curbing the spread and there were reasons to ease curbs.
Delhi recorded around 3.23 lakh Covid-19 cases this month so far.
On January 13, there were 98,832 tests and the positivity rate was 29.21% while on January 14 and 15, the positivity rate was at 30.64% but the cases had come down to 24,383 and 20,718 cases respectively. The cases and positivity rate have decreased since then.
Check out latest coronavirus-related videos from DH: