Telangana extends lockdown till 9 June; allows curbs to be relaxed from 6am-1pm

Hyderabad: Telangana Cabinet on Sunday extended the ongoing lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19 by another 10 days with relaxations from 6 am to 1 pm every day. The present lockdown would have ended on Sunday. The Cabinet has decided to continue the ongoing lockdown in the state for another 10 days from Monday (31 May), an official statement from the Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s office said. The Cabinet meeting was held in Hyderabad to discuss several issues, including the extension of the lockdown. For those who go out to purchase groceries and finish off their work by 1 pm, a grace period of one hour would be given, the Cabinet said on Sunday. Before the met, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, in a tweet, urged KCR not to extend the lockdown by terming it as not a strategy to combat COVID-19 and said the only long-term solution to the pandemic is universal vaccination. Strongly urge @TelanganaCMO to not extend lockdown. If goal is to reduce crowding, then we may consider evening curfews (6 pm onward) or mini-lockdown for COVID clusters. But expecting 3.5 crore people to live for weeks with just a 4-hour lockdown relaxation is not fair at all, Owaisi said in a series of tweets. The Hyderabad MP said as such, the COVID-19 cases were declining in Telangana even before the lockdown was announced from 12 May.