Lockdown 4.0 is likely to see further opening up of economic activities. There are however indications that the zone classification criteria, based on which districts are declared red, green and orange zones, may not see any major change.
Sources said while colour-coding of districts and declaring of containment zones on the basis of Covid-19 positive cases will stay, there will be far lesser curbs on economic activities, workplaces, business operations, factories & manufacturing units in non-containment areas of red and orange zones.
E-commerce may be allowed for non-essential goods in red zones as well. The new home ministry guidelines for the extended lockdown extension may put out a negative list of activities that will be barred rather than a list of activities allowed in Red/orange zones.
“So basically, unless prohibited expressly in red and yellow zones by the new MHA guidelines, all activities can resume in areas outside of containment zones,” said an officer. In a major relaxation, aviation sector may open up starting Monday, though on limited domestic routes. Delhi-Mumbai will be among the routes on which flights are likely to resume. However, no decision is expected on restarting international flights just yet.
‘Shopping malls, salon services may not start yet’ With total ban on public transportation in red zones coming in the way of opening of private offices even with 33% attendance and also inconveniencing government employees, some graded opening of these services is being considered.
This may include opening of Metro rail services on a limited scale. CISF has already prepared a standard operating protocol for safe resumption of Delhi Metro services, which prescribes mass thermal screening of passengers at entrance to metro stations and keeping out those red-flagged by the scanning system.