The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Saturday extended the existing Covid19 enforcement of containment measures till September 30.
The MHA has asked the state governments and union territories to strictly follow the earlier orders issued by the Union home ministry and the Union health ministry.
In an order issued by Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla on Saturday, the MHA said, “In the exercise of powers, conferred under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the undersigned hereby directs that the order of the Ministry of Home Affairs to ensure compliance to the containment measures for Covid19, as conveyed vide Ministry of Health & Family Welfare will remain in force up to September 30, 2021.”
Keeping in view of the overall pandemic situation at the national level now appears to be largely stable, except for localised spread of the virus in few states, Bhalla said, “The total number of active cases and high case positivity in some districts continue to remain a matter of concern.”
In a separate communication with states and UTs, Bhalla said the weekly enforcement data received from across the country with regard to wearing face masks in public, maintaining social distancing norms and imposition of fines indicate a downward trend.
He asked the state governments and UT administrations to augment their efforts for effectively checking the transmission of the disease.
Bhalla directed the state administrations to fix the responsibilities of the district officials if any failures occur in effective enforcement of Covid19 appropriate behaviour.
The Union home secretary said the states and UTs need to take suitable measures to avoid large gatherings during the coming festive seasons and if required, impose local restrictions with a view to curb such large gatherings.
Bhalla said, “We need to continue our focus on the five-fold strategy – test, track, treat, vaccination and adherence to Covid appropriate behaviour.”
Bhalla asked the states and the UTs to continue their vaccination programmes so as to inoculate the maximum number of eligible persons and also to ensure that areas having no virus or low virus transmission are adequately protected by increasing testing and other surveillance measures.