The Central on Thursday designated Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad as red zones in a revised list.
As per the Centre’s guidelines, districts with high load of COVID-19 cases or which have a high growth rate of the disease are classified under red zones.
Districts with considerably fewer cases have been classified under orange zones and districts with no COVID-19 cases are categorised as green zones.
The Centre also informed that necessary action will be initiated in red zones as part of the containment action plan.
The containment action plan includes stringent perimeter control, active search for cases, testing of all cases, contact tracing and clinical management of all confirmed cases.
“It is critical to ensure that necessary action for containment so as to break the chain of transmission of the virus is initiated in both red and orange zone districts reporting confirmed cases,” the health ministry order stated.
The order further informed that in urban districts the containment zones will be demarcated on the basis of a residential colony, municipal wards, police station area, municipal zones, or towns.
“In rural areas, these zones will be based on villages, clusters of villages, gram panchayats, among others,” the health ministry order added.
The order further informed that there are 130 red zones, 284 orange zones and 319 green zones across the country.