Maharashtra should accept coronavirus as a part of life and begin the process of relaxing the lockdown, suggested Sharad Pawar, the chief of Nationalist Congress Party, today. In a series of tweets, Mr Pawar whose party is part of the state’s ruling coalition, said he had a discussion on the matter with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray today.
After the Centre announced lockdown 4 with a series of relaxations and left it to the states to decide on the specifics, Maharashtra which has the biggest chunk of the country’s coronavirus patients, indicated that it would not ease lockdown in a hurry.
While allowing 50,000 industries to open in the green zone — which has minimum or no cases of coronavirus — the Chief Minister said the state has managed to avoid a bigger outbreak only because of the lockdown. “What if we lift the lockdown and this coronavirus spreads everywhere? I won’t let that happen in Maharashtra,” he said.
But with the economy counting the cost of a prolonged lockdown, Mr Pawar today offered a roadmap of easing the restrictions and getting the state back on the track to recovery.
“Corona disease will not be completely eradicated shortly. It is necessary to accept the corona as a part of life, beware of it & create awareness among the masses about health care. In Japan, people wear masks, look after personal hygiene as part of their routine social life,” his tweet read.
In later tweets, he spoke of providing incentives for industry and restarting transport, ports, and the education sector.
The state, he said, needs to take the “right steps to gradually restore” road transport and plan for the resumption of air and rail services. The Centre has already announced resumption of 200 trains from the next month.
Shops, offices, establishments in the private sector should be opened in a staggered manner.
The pace of work in public and private ports seems to have slowed down, Mr Pawar tweeted. To increase imports, exports and inland shipping, consultations should be held with industrialist, entrepreneurs and expert officials in the field.
“New employment opportunities have emerged for unemployed people in Maharashtra. An action plan will have to be drawn up on how to accommodate them in the industry,” one of the tweets read.
To build public confidence, ministers and government officials should join work. The government should keep people posted about the relaxations through daily briefings, he said.
