The Andhra Pradesh government today extended the state's ongoing
"partial lockdown" till May 31. Chief Minister Y S Jaganmohan Reddy issued the orders for the extension to the concerned officials after a high-level review meeting on the matter.
The curfew, originally implemented on May 5, was supposed to come to an end tomorrow, May 18. However, the still-high number of cases in the state had prompted the government to extend the lockdown-like restrictions, implemented from 12:00 pm to 6:00 am every day, in till the end of May.
Speaking on the matter, Jagan said that the state would need at least four weeks time to truly benefit from the partial lockdown, and that since it had only been 10 days since its imposition, the government had decided to extend it till May 31.
Apart from this, the CM asked the officials of the state to take strong steps for the containment of the pandemic in the rural areas of AP, and to involve Asha workers and village volunteers in this.
The officials were also asked to take steps to protect the children whose parents had lost their lives in the pandemic and to come up with an action plan for the extension of financial assistance to the children.
As part of this initiative, the CM told the officials to deposit fixed amounts in the names of the affected children so that they could, in the future, use the interest from the same to finance their daily needs.
The decision comes after the state continued to record a daily tally of over 20,000 cases. the highest single-day tally, of 24,171, was recorded on May 16 - a clear indication of the ineffectiveness of the current curfew in curbing the incidence of Covid-19 in AP.