Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru among 130 Red Zones designated by Centre ahead of lockdown-end

New Delhi, May 01: Amid talk of lockdown extension, the health ministry has come up with a list of containment zones and divided the states and districts into different categories considering the prevailing situation in these areas.

All metro cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata have been put under Red Zone. The cities also include Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.

The districts have been divided into three categories Red Zone, Orange Zone and Green Zone. According to the list, there are 130 red zones, where more stringent restrictions will be enforced post-May 3.

14 districts have been named as red zones in Maharashtra as the state continues to be the worst hit in the country.

In Delhi 11 districts, 12 districts in Tamil Nadu, 19 districts in Uttar Pradesh, 10 districts in West Bengal, 9 each in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh and 8 districts in Rajasthan have been declared red zones.

20 districts in Bihar, 36 districts in UP, 24 districts in Tamil Nadu, 19 districts in Rajasthan, 15 in Punjab, 19 in Madhya Pradesh and 16 districts in Maharashtra fall under the Orange Zone category.

Assam has the maximum number of Green Zone districts at 30.

25 districts in Chhattisgarh, 25 districts in Arunachal, 24 districts in Madhya Pradesh, 21 in Odisha, 20 in UP and 10 in Uttarakhand have been declared Green Zone.

In Delhi, all 11 districts have been declared Red Zone, whereas Gurugram is in the Orange Zone, but Faridabad is in Red Zone. In UP, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra, Saharanpur, Meerut, Raibareili, Aligarh are in Red Zone. Ghaziabad, Hapur, Bagpat, Shamli, Prayagraj fall under the orange category.

As per the health ministry, the containment zones in these districts have been delineated based on

• Mapping of cases and contacts
• Geographical dispersion of cases and contacts
• The area with well-demarcated perimeter
• Enforceability

"Depending on the above factors, for urban areas -- residential colony/mohallas / municipal wards or police-station area / municipal zones/towns et. as appropriate can be designated as containment zones. Similarly, for rural areas -- villages/clusters of villages or group of police stations/gram panchayat/blocks etc can be appropriated as designated containment zones," the health ministry letter to the chief secretaries of various states read.

The states can further designate additional red or orange zones as appropriate, the health ministry also added.