Mumbai Lockdown Update: BMC says Public gardens, beaches to remain open from 6 am to 10 pm

Mumbai, Aug 16: All public gardens, playgrounds, chowpatties and beaches in Mumbai will now remain open from 6 am to 10 pm as part of fresh relaxations in COVID-19 restrictions, municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal said on Monday.

Earlier, on June 4 this year, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had allowed these places to open for the public from 5 am to 9 am. The BMC on Sunday issued fresh guidelines under ''Break the Chain'' programme, using powers conferred by the Maharashtra government to decide the timings. "Public grounds, gardens, beaches and sea fronts to remain open from 6 am to 10 pm," Chahal said on Monday.

All other guidelines issued by the state government on August 11 will be effective till the next order, the BMC said. Under the modified ''Break the Chain'' guidelines issued on August 11, the state government had given powers to local authorities to decide about opening the public gardens, playgrounds and beaches. On August 8, state Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said fully vaccinated citizens of Mumbai can travel in local trains from August 15, but a gap of 14 days from the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine is necessary to avail the facility.

The state government has also allowed malls and restaurants to remain open till 10 pm with 50 per cent capacity from August 15 onwards. On Sunday, Mumbai reported 267 new cases of coronavirus, which took the city''s infection count to 7,39,336, while four deaths pushed the toll to 15,989, civic authorities said. For the last one week, the number of new cases in the metropolis have remained under 300.