Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Friday informed that the lockdown will be lifted in Maharashtra in a phase-wise manner depending on the positivity rate and adequacy of medical resources for treatment.
On June 3 Maharashtra Government took a U-turn from Maharashtra Minister Vijay Wadettiwar’s announcement of lifting lockdown in the state.
Under the ‘Break The Chain’ order government has prepared 5 Level unlock plan which will come into effect from Monday based on weekly positivity rate and oxygen bed occupancies. Every Thursday, the Public Health Department of the Government of Maharashtra will declare the number of oxygen beds occupied at the state level, as well as the positivity rate and oxygen beds occupation percentage in each district
For Level 3, 4 and 5 wherever it is mentioned that an establishment shall be open till 4 PM it is expected that persons working thereat or taking a service from that shall reach their homes by 5 PM and there shall be movements for reasons of either working in these or taking services from these establishments post 5 PM.
There must a well quantified oxygen trigger that will be the basis for Level 3 and above restrictions across the state
Levels of Restrictions:
There shall be five levels of restrictions for different classes/ categories of activities. These levels of restrictions shall be applied based on two parameters: Case Positivity Rate and Percentage of Oxygen Beds Occupancy. Every Disaster Management Authority shall enforce these levels of restrictions over administrative units falling under its jurisdiction. The following levels of restrictions are hereby declared along with criteria as well as general guiding principles that may be adopted for containment measures
The 5 level plan-
- Level 1- (Positivity< 5%) and (Oxygen Beds Occupancy is less than 25%)
- Level 2- (Positivity < 5%) and Oxygen Beds Occupancy is between 25% and 40%)
- Level 3– (Positivity is between 5%. And 10%) or (Oxygen Beds Occupancy is more than 40%)
- Level 4- (Positivity is between 10% and 20%) or (Oxygen Beds Occupancy is more than 60%)
- Level 5- (Positivity is more than 20%) or (Oxygen Beds Occupancy is more than 75%)
Administrative Units:
- Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, Pune Municipal Corporation, Thane Municipal Corporation, Nashik Municipal Corporation, Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, Aurganbad Municipal Corporation, Vasai Virar Municipal Corporation, Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation, Nagpur Municipal Corporation, Sholapur Municipal Corporation and Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation will be treated as seperate administrative units.
- Remaining area of each of 34 districts (other than Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburban District), after carving out areas under sub-secion A, shall form a separate single administrative unit.
- DDMA may propose any contiguous area with common characteristics and self-contained economic and social interactions, where the population is at least about one million, to be declared as a separate administrative unit for the limited purposes of this regulation, to CEO of State Disaster Management Authority for final approval and declaration
Notes:
- For level 3, 4 and 5 wherever it is mentioned that an establishment shall be open till 4 PM it is expected that persons working thereat or taking a service from that shall reach their homes by 5 PM and there shall be movements for reasons of either working in these or taking services from these establishments post 5 PM.
- Few Essential services that are allowed to travel in local trains at higher levels shall be Medical, Government offices and Airport and Port services. SDMA may include some other services in this list if so deemed fit.
- Whenever an E-Pass is required by a passenger, all the passengers in a vehicle shall require individual passes. Passenger vehicles shall require no separate pass.
- Government offices and Emergency services required for Covid 19 management to always work with 100%. attendance Other government offices may have higher attendance than indicated in above table, in Mumbai with permission of Chief Secretary and in rest of the State, with the permission of respective Disaster Management Authorities.
Essential Services includes the following
- Hospitals, diagnostic centers, Clinics, vaccinations, Medical insurance offices, Pharmacies, Pharmaceutical companies, other medical and health services including supporting manufacturing and distribution units along with their dealers, transport and supply chain. Manufacturing and distribution of vaccines, sanitizers, masks, medical equipment, their ancillaries, raw material units and support services.
- Veterinary Services/ Animal Care shelters and pet food shops
- All operations related to forestry as declared by the Forest Department
- Aviation and related services (airlines, airports, maintenance, cargo, ground services, catering, fueling, security etc)
- Groceries, Vegetables Shops, fruit vendors, dairies, bakeries, confectionaries, all type of food shops.
- Cold Storage and Warehousing services
- Public Transport: Airplanes, Trains, Taxis, Autos and public buses.
- Services related to functioning of offices of Diplomats of various countries
- Pre Monsoon Activities by local authorities
- All Public Services by local authorities.
- Reserve Bank of India and services designated by RBI as essential
- All offices of SEBI recognized market infrastructure institutions such as Stock Exchanges, depositories, clearing corporations etc and other intermediaries registered with SEBI
- Services required for restoration/ maintenance of telecom services Transport of Goods
- Water Supply Services
- Agriculture related activities and all allied activities required to ensure seamless continuity of the agricultural sector including availability of farming input, seeds, fertilizers, equipment’s and repairs thereof.
- Export-Import of all commodities
- E-Commerce (only for the supply of essential goods and services)
- Accredited Media
- Petrol Pumps and Petroleum related products; including offshore /onshore production
- All cargo services
- Data Centers/ Cloud Services/ IT services supporting critical infrastructure and services
- Government and Private Security Services
- Electric and gas supply services
- ATM’s
- Postal Services
- Ports and related activities
- Custom House Agents/ Licensed Multi Modal Transport Operators associated with movement of vaccines/ lifesaving drugs/ pharmaceutical products.
- Units producing raw material/ packaging material for any essential services
- Units that are engaged in production of materials for impending rainy season for individuals as well as for organisations
- Any Services designated as essential services by local disaster management authority.
“Exemptions” to cover the following
- Offices of Central, State, and Local governments, including of their statutory authorities and organizations
- Cooperative, PSU and Private Banks
- Offices of companies providing essential services
- Insurance/ Mediclaim Companies
- Pharmaceutical company offices needed for management of production/ distribution
- RBI regulated entities and intermediaries including standalone primary dealers, CCIL, NPCI, payment system operators and financial market participants operating in RBI regulated markets.
- All Non Banking Financial Corporations
- All micro finance institutions
As far as inter-state travel is concerned this shall be regulated by separate orders from time to time.
State Level Oxygen Trigger:
Government has taken note of the fact that medical oxygen is the most critical resource for the treatment of Covid 19, and as the production capacity of State of Maharashtra is currently 1200 MT per Day there are serious difficulties in sourcing oxygen from out of state sources as well as transporting oxygen to various remote parts of the state. Thus there must a well-quantified oxygen trigger that will be the basis for level 3 and above restrictions across the state.
Given the state’s current oxygen production capacity at 1200 MT per Day, as indicated above, and the fact that typically, on an average 1000 Covid 19 patients require 20 MT per Day, the maximum number of patients that can be supported from the state production capacity is 60000. In view of the aforesaid, the following oxygen trigger shall operate:
- If Total oxygen beds occupied are more than 45000 in whole of the state with rising trend of oxygen beds occupancy or,
- Total oxygen beds occupied are more than 50000 irrespective of the trend of oxygen beds occupancy, then no part of the state, irrespective of other local parameters like Positivity and Oxygen Bed Occupancy, shall be below level 4. This is to ensure that Maharashtra state daily consumption of oxygen for medical treatment remains within the daily production capacity of the state which is about 1200 MT and may cater to about 60000 beds for Covid 19 patients.
- If Total oxygen beds occupied are between 35,000 and 45000 irrespective of the trend of oxygen beds occupancy or
- Total oxygen beds occupancy between 45000 and 50000 with reducing trend, no part of the state shall be below level 3.
The operationalization of the above-mentioned levels of restrictions will be as follows
- Every Thursday, Public Health Department of Government of Maharashtra will declare number of oxygen beds occupied at the state level, as well as positivity rate and oxygen beds occupation percentage in each district. SDMA shall declare whether overarching condition stated in section IV exists.