Decoration for New year with colourful lights at Plaza Sector 17 Chandigarh on Wednesday, December 30 2015. (Express file photo by Sahil Walia)
Putting all speculation to rest, the Chandigarh Administration on Tuesday announced that “there won’t be any restrictions on New Year’s Eve” but people should return to their homes at 1 am positively.
The UT Administrator convened a review meeting to decide on the night curfew with Principal Secretary Health, Director General of Police and Deputy Commissioner, Chandigarh.
“Considering that the number of active cases and positive cases being detected every day are coming down and no case of new strain found in UK has been detected in Chandigarh, it was decided that there is no need of any additional restrictions or night curfew for the New Year’s Eve,” said a statement issued by the Administration.
However, the Administrator directed the Director General of Police to ensure that the existing Covid- appropriate behaviour and the restrictions on number of persons and opening and closing of hotels, restaurants should be strictly enforced.
“As a precautionary measure, Administrator appealed to the residents not to crowd public places and positively return to the comforts of their homes by 1 am on New Year’s Eve,” it was stated.
After the decision, DC Mandeep Singh Brar, along with SSP Kuldip Singh Chahal held a meeting with the representatives of hotels, restaurants, pubs and nightclubs in order to emphasise compliance with the Covid-19 related guidelines like wearing masks and maintaining distance.
The DC asked the hotel and restaurant owners to operate with half their capacity and keep the gathering limited to 200. He added that any violation of these guidelines would attract severe action from the administration.
