Mumbai: The Maharashtra government announced a night curfew in the state and a “strict lockdown” over the weekends from Friday 8 pm to Monday 7 am amid an unprecedented surge in Covid- 19 cases.

The Government imposed strict restriction to curb the Covid – 19 surges in the state including ban on gatherings of five or more throughout the day; malls, restaurants, bars and places of worship will be closed; home delivery and essential services will be allowed. The new rules, which come into effect tomorrow, include a curfew from 8 pm to 7 am. Industrial operations and construction activity will be allowed. Rules to control crowding in vegetable markets will be introduced. Film shoots will be allowed without crowds but theatres will be closed.

Everything except essential services will be closed on weekends. There will be no new restrictions on traffic but public transport will run at 50 per cent capacity. After the cabinet meeting led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray the cabinet to a decision on Covid – 19 surge and to discuss the situation on Sunday, two days after he said he could not rule out a second lockdown to combat the spike in Covid – 19 cases in the state.

Maharashtra reported nearly 50,000 new cases on Saturday – around 60 per cent of all cases reported from across the country on that day. On Friday the state reported around 48,000 cases. State capital Mumbai reported over 11,000 cases on Sunday the most in a day since the pandemic began in December 2019.

On Saturday, the city reported over 9,000 new cases. Pune, one of the biggest cities in the state, has also reported alarming figures; on Friday the district administration ordered a 12-hour night curfew and the shutting down of shopping malls, religious places, and hotels and bars for a week, as well as that of public buses.