Although Telangana's officials had so far maintained that Telangana
did not need a lockdown currently, the state government today took the decision to impose a lockdown from May 12 for 10 days to curb the spread of Covid-19.
A Cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, was held at the Pragati Bhavan at 2:00 pm today. At the meeting, the leaders of the state took the call to implement the lockdown at a time when the state's high court has been continually
faulting the KCR regime for its "failure" to deal with the second wave of the pandemic effectively. It has even pointed out that the
night curfew has not been yielding the desired results of bringing down Telangana's case tally - the state's current 62,797 active cases somewhat support this charge and suggest that the curfew has indeed been somewhat ineffectual in containing the spread of Covid-19.
Officials hope that the new lockdown will be more effective in "breaking the chain" of the pandemic. It will be implemented from 10:00 am to 6:00 am every day. A period of relaxation of the curfew norms will be allowed for four hours in the morning, between 6:00 am and 10:00 am, daily.
A tweet from the CMO on the matter said, "The State cabinet has decided to impose lockdown in the State from 10 am on May 12 (Wednesday) for ten days. However, there would be relaxation for all the activities from 6 AM to 10 AM daily. The Cabinet also decided to invite Global tenders for the procurement of the vaccine (sic)."
Essential services like petrol pumps, hospitals, chemist shops, and media offices have however been exempted from following the lockdown orders.
Allaying the fears of the public regarding the
serious livelihood challenges that the lockdown will inevitably bring, the government has said that it will announce steps to ease the income issues.