Centre had told Maharashtra, weekend lockdowns won’t work, but containment would

New Delhi, Apr 06: The Maharashtra government on Sunday imposed a full lockdown on weekends amidst the rising COVID-19 cases.

The decision was not made known by Maharashtra during the meeting chaired by the Cabinet Secretary on Friday. During the meeting the Chief Secretary of Maharashtra got the most time, but no discussion took place on the imposition of a lockdown. This could be due to the fact that the Centre had earlier made it clear that weekend lockdowns have limited impact, said a report in the Indian Express.

On March 15, Union Health Secretary, Rajesh Bhushan had written a letter to Maharashtra Chief Secretary, Sitaram Kunte stating that the focus should be on containment and not lockdowns.

"Measures such as night curfews, weekend lockdowns, have very limited impact on containing/ suppressing the transmission. Hence the district administration should focus on strict and effective containment strategy," Bhushan had said in his letter.

Maharashtra had taken the decision of imposing a weekend lockdown as the people were not complying with COVID-19 appropriate behaviour. The people had become indifferent to the problem and hence a measure such as this was needed.