75 districts under lockdown, only essential services to be open

New Delhi, Mar 22: The Centre and state governments have decided to completely shutdown75 districts across the country where coronavirus cases have been reported, officials said on Sunday.

It has also been decided to suspend the interstate bus services till March 31, the officials said.

In view of the need to contain the spread of the deadly COVID-19, it was agreed that there was an urgent need to extend the restrictions on the movement of non-essential passenger transport, including interstate transport buses till March 31, a Union Home Ministry official said.

State governments will issue orders allowing only essential services to operate in about 75 districts with confirmed COVID-19 cases or casualties, the official said.

The decisions have been taken at a high-level meeting attended by chief secretaries of all states and the cabinet secretary and the principal secretary to the prime minister.

The districts where lockdown was announced are from states that include Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

The state governments may expand the list depending on their assessment of the situation.

In the meeting, it was decided to suspend all train services till March 31, including sub-urban rail services. However, goods trains are exempted. All metro rail services were also suspended till March 31.

The total number of novel coronavirus cases in India rose to 341 on Sunday after fresh cases were reported from various parts of the country, the Union Health Ministry said.

Here are the districts that will be placed under lockdown:

• Rajasthan: Bilwara, Jhunjhunu, Sikar and Jaipur
• Tamil Nadu: Chennai, Erode and Kanchipurum
• Telangana: Bhadradri Kothagudam, Hyderabad, Medchai, Ranga reddy and Sanga Reddy
• Uttar Pradesh: Agra, GB Nagar, Ghaziabad, Varanasi, Lakhimpur Kheri and Lucknow
• Uttarakhand: Dehradun
• West Bengal: Kolkata and North 24 Parganas
• Karnataka: Bangalore, Chikkaballapura, Mysore, Kodagu and Kalaburgi
• Kerala: Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Idukki, Kannur, Kasargod, Kottayam, Mallapuram, Pathanamthitta, Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur
• Ladakh: Kargil and Leh
• Madhya Pradesh: Jabalpur
• Maharashtra: Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Mumbai, Nagpur, Mumbai Sub-Urb, Pune, Ratnagiri, Raigad, Thane and Yavatmal
• Odisha: Khurda
• Puducherry: Mahe
• Punjab: Hoshiarpur, SAS Nagar and SBS Nagar​
• Andhra Pradesh: Prakasam, Vijaywada and Vizag
• Chandigarh: Chandigarh
• Chhattisgarh: Raipur
• Delhi: Central, East Delhi, North Delhi, North West Delhi, North East Delhi, South Delhi and West Delhi
• Gujarat: Kutchh, Rajkot, Gandhinagar, Surat, Vadodara, and Ahmedabad
• Haryana: Faridabad, Sonepat, Panchkula, Panipat and Gurugram
• Himachal Pradesh: Kangra
• Jammu & Kashmir: Srinagar and Jammu​

What will be closed?
All inter-state buses, passenger trains and metro services have been suspended.