Uddhav Thackeray imposes curfew across Maharashtra

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, March 23

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announced a statewide curfew from midnight tonight and sealing of all district borders within the state even as the number of people who tested positive for the Covid-19 virus rose to 89.

The death toll from the coronavirus in Maharashtra has risen to three with one patient, a Filipino national, dying at a city hospital on Monday. According to the health department, the 68-year-old Filipino man was suffering from a number of health conditions, including impaired kidney function. He had been shifted from the state-run Kasturba Hospital to a private hospital after he tested negative for the Covid-19 virus last week, according to officials.

Thackeray told reporters that he was compelled to impose curfew across Maharashtra as people had disobeyed the government’s order to stay and home and were moving about.

While lauding the people for making Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Janata Curfew on Sunday a success, Thackeray said it was not enough to eradicate the coronavirus. “Simply clapping will not make the virus go away,” the CM said.

Suspension of local trains disrupts supply of essentials

Supply of newspapers, fruits and vegetables in Mumbai ground to a halt after the suspension of suburban train services in the city.

”There won’t be any supply of newspapers till Wednesday as we are still talking to newspaper managements,” newspaper vendors’ union Brihanmumbai Vrittapatra Vikreta Sangh said in a statement.

Newspaper vendors said they were unable to pick up copies from their depots following the suspension of train services.

Supply of fruits and vegetables to Mumbai also came to a halt as vendors could not reach the wholesale markets.

“The Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee Market at Vashi will be closed till March

31,” said director Sanjay Pansare. According to him traders from wholesale markets in Mumbai who supply to the retail vendors did not come to pick up their supplies from Saturday.

”Stocks from two days ago are still lying at the market and will soon start rotting. We are closing the market as vendors cannot transport fruits and vegetables,” Pansare added.

Mumbai’s suburban trains, or locals as they are called, usually begin their operations at 4.30 am when vendors bring their supplies to the city. The main wholesale agriculture produce market at Byculla in South Central Mumbai was closed more than 40 years ago when it was moved to Navi

Mumbai.

APMC authorities asked farmers in Nashik, Pune and other places not to send fruits and vegetables to Mumbai until further notice, according to Pansare.