PM Modi to address nation at 10 am today

New Delhi, Apr 13: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation at 10 am today. The address to the nation will take place on April 14, 2020.

The 21 day lockdown announced by the Centre comes to an end tomorrow. While many states have already announced that the lockdown would continue in the respective states, the PM was expected to make an announcement.

During the meeting of the Chief Ministers on Saturday, it was suggested to the PM that the Centre should make an announcement about the extension of the lockdown. The CMs also suggested that the centre issue a set of guidelines while extending the lockdown.

Meanwhile, the government has intensified efforts to finalise the guidelines to ahead of April 14, the last day of the lockdown. While it is clear that the lockdown would continue, several measures are being taken to also revive the economy.

The idea is to make the lockdown more calibrated when compared to the first phase, officials working on the guidelines tell OneIndia.

One of the major concerns was raised by the Ministry of Commerce. The Ministry has raised concerns with the Ministry of Home Affairs regarding the movement of vehicles carrying essential supplies. There is a need to enable such movement if the lockdown has to continue and remain successful the MHA was told.

Further, the Commerce Ministry has said that several manufacturing units need to be opened up. These would include automobiles, textiles and industries manufacturing electronic goods. Further, a suggestion to open up smaller companies with export commitments was also made. However, the Ministry said that these industries must operate with minimal staff and proper sanitation has to be in place.

In all probability, the Centre may classify the country into three zones while announcing the guidelines. Chief Minister of Haryana, Manohar Lal Khattar said that the state would be divided into three zones while lifting the restrictions.

The PM has held several meetings with the top brass in the past one week to discuss the lockdown and the measures to be taken post-April 14. Two key considerations were considered during these deliberations, officials familiar with the development told OneIndia. There is the question of life and there is livelihood and both are equally important.

Officials said that the lockdown needed to be lifted in a staggered manner as it had to be ensured that India goes not go into negative growth. Most officials said that a balance had to be struck in a situation such as this. Lives have to be saved, but it was also important to revive economic activity, officials told the PM.

Officials suggested that in order to revive economic activity, the nation had to be divided into three zones. The red zone would be the one with the most number of coronavirus cases and these zones would remain locked down. In the yellow zone, where limited number of cases are reported, activity would resume, but the movement would be heavily monitored. In the green zones, where no coronavirus activity is reported, the officials suggested that normalcy should return.