On a day when the Union government announced extension of the COVID-19 lockdown for two more weeks, the State government received a set of recommendations from its 17-member panel on the “exit strategy” from the lockdown.
The panel’s chief and Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) S. Krishnan met Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and reportedly briefed him on the broad contours of the findings of the team’s study.
Earlier, the team held consultations with experts and other stakeholders. Mr. Palaniswami held consultations with industrialists on April 23 and assured them that he would consider their concerns and requests.
A source in the State government said that there won’t be any contradictions between what the Government of India says and the State government does with regard to relaxations. “Even in the April 15 Government of India order, they said that except in containment zones, in hotspot districts too industries can operate,” the source said.
“It (T.N. decision) will be within the overall scope (of the GoI’s guidelines). All of GoI’s orders so far have been — this is the outside limit of how far you can go but you need not give as much freedom as we are asking to (but) you cannot go beyond those orders,” he said.
States have been empowered to make the conditions more stringent than what they are. Industry sources expect the government to allow industrial activity in a staggered manner even in the red zone, outside of the containment area.
In the containment zone, no movement or activity will be allowed, an industry representative in the know of the development said. However, the government source made it clear that lockdown conditions would continue for certain districts such as Chennai and its neighbouring districts.
S. Vasudevan, joint secretary, Tamilnadu Small and Tiny Industries Association, suggested that a whole district could not be classified as a red zone. “You have to further divide it ward-wise and only in the containment area the industrial activities should not be allowed. We had suggested that industrial estates which are located outside the city should be allowed to operate.”
The government source said since everyone was in uncharted waters in this pandemic, looking at the data, the pluses, minuses and concerns before taking a decision was key. “It also becomes that this is a long-term fight, (there is) no vaccine, no medicine yet. We will have to start moving towards the new normal and find a way to deal with it,” the source added.
