Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 22

The Haryana government on Sunday announced a lockdown in seven of its 22 districts. Only districts from where Covid-19 cases have been reported so far have been identified for a lockdown, though essential services will continue as usual in these revenue districts.

The lockdown in these districts — Gurugram, Sonepat, Panchkula, Rohtak, Jhajjar, Faridabad and Panipat — comes into effect from 9 pm Sunday till March 31. As many as 6,600 people are under surveillance for coronavirus in Haryana.

The lockdown will entail suspension of public transport services, including taxis and autos, with the exception of those going to and from hospitals or airports, railway stations and bus terminals.

All shops and commercial establishment will remain closed other than those engaged in providing essential services.

Listed out in the government order, these services include government offices open as per the order of the Chief Secretary, air services, electricity, water, sewerage and municipal services, banks and ATMs, print, electronic and social media, telecom and internet services, postal services, supply chains and related transportation, manufacturing units engaged in production of essential commodities, e-commerce delivery of food, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment.

Hospitals, petrol pumps, LPG and godowns, pharmaceutical units manufacturing masks and sanitisers will also be functional during the lockdown. The units which require continuous process can continue operations after due permission from the Deputy Commissioner.

The order also mentions that all foreign returnees will remain under strict home quarantine for the period decided by the local health authorities.

Meanwhile, Haryana has set up two control rooms to coordinate and monitor all activities for prevention and control of Covid-19.

The control room of the Chief Secretary will have senior IAS officer, TC Gupta, and SS Phulia, besides two HCS officers — Samwarthak Singh and Rohit Yadav. The other control room set up under the Additional CS, Health, includes IAS officer Vikas Gupta.

Also, the state government has assigned the “lockdown” districts to senior officers for regular monitoring. ACS VS Kundu has been assigned Gurugram, Principal Secretary Anand Mohan Sharan has been assigned Sonepat, Vineet Garg gets Panipat, Deepti Umashankar has been assigned Panchkula, D Suresh will look after Rohtak and Jhajjar, while Sanjay Joon has been given Faridabad.

The following order has been issued by the government in this regard: