After the Telangana High Court expressed immense dissatisfaction over the state government's failure to handle the rising incidence of Covid-19 in the state and directed it to
take a decision on the imposition of a curfew some days ago, the government had announced that
a night curfew would be imposed in the state from 9:00 pm to 5:00 am, between April 20 and May 1.
However, in the face of the
persistent spike in case figures being recorded in the state, the government today announced that the night curfew had been extended the morning of May 8.
Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar issued GO 91, which contained the orders for the extension. He reportedly also instructed all the relevant district-level officials to impose the orders strictly till May 8.
All offices, shops, pubs, restaurants, hotels and other public places will continue to close by 8:00 pm every evening. Print and electronic media offices, pharmaceutical firms, chemist shops, hospitals, emergency services, petrol pumps, LPG and CNG suppliers, cold storage facilities, essential commodities and government agencies and offices however are exempted from following the curfew timings. The exemption orders also apply to IT and IT-related services, power and water agencies, the telecommunication industry, and inter-state and intra-state transit facilities.
The extension comes after the state's apex court hauled up the state government for its inability to deal with the rise in the number of cases and fatalities in Telangana, and asked the latter to make a quick call on the steps to prevent the further spread of the pandemic.
This prompted Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao to decide to extend the curfew by a week.