Bihar lockdown to be extended? CM Nitish Kumar to take a call today

The Nitish Kumar government in Bihar will take a decision regarding the Covid-19 lockdown in the state, which is ending today. The Bihar government had on May 31 extended Covid-19 lockdown till June 8, following a review of the situation by Kumar and state officials. This was the fourth extension of the lockdown that began on May 5.

Meanwhile, less than 800 fresh COVID-19 cases were reported in Bihar on Monday, in yet another indication that the second wave was on the wane in the state, though 43 fatalities pushed the death toll to 5424. According to the health department, 762 people tested positive in the last 24 hours. The total number of confirmed cases has risen to 7,13,879 and 7,00,224 people have, so far, recovered. On the vaccination front, the number of people to have got the jabs to date has reached 1.12 crore. These include more than two million people in the age group of 18-44 years.

At present these restrictions are in place in Bihar:

• Shops dealing in essential items like grocery, vegetables, dairy products, meat and fish, are allowed to do business from 6 am to 2 pm.
• In addition, all other shops which had hitherto been ordered shut are allowed to do business on alternate days.
• Shopping malls, cinema halls, gyms, stadiums, clubs and swimming pools will, however, remain closed.
• Religious places remain shut and so are schools/colleges/coaching institutes.
• Restrictions on the number of people who could attend weddings and funerals remain unaltered at 20.
• Curbs on vehicular traffic which entail public transport vehicles running with not more than 50 per cent capacity and privately owned ones plying only after obtaining passes, also remain in place.
• The fresh guidelines also allow all government offices to remain open till 4 pm "with not more than 25 per cent attendance", but the same concession has not been extended to private establishments.

Lockdown was first clamped on May 05 after the state was left gasping with an explosive rise in the incidence of COVID 19 which had caused its active caseload to exceed one lakh.