Premium
This is an archive article published on May 21, 2020

Pimpri-Chinchwad: Buses with 50% occupancy allowed, industrial units to work at full strength

All shops for essential goods and non-essential goods have been allowed to remain open from 9 am to 5 pm without seeking prior written permission from the civic body. Buses can ply with 50 per cent occupancy.

pharmacist, pune, lockdown, covid-19, coronavirus, vikram dahiya, indianexpress.com, social distancing, chemist shops, essentials, lockdown lessons, The PCMC order said hospitals, clinics, medical stores, maternity homes will be allowed to remain open round the clock (Image sourced)

Pimpri-Chinchwad, which has been notified as a non-Red zone by the Maharashtra government, will from Friday see full-fledged working of industrial units in Pimpri-Chinchwad-Bhosari and neighbouring areas. PMPML buses with 50 per cent commuter strength and autorickshaws with two passengers, have also been allowed.

All shops for essential goods and non-essential goods have been allowed to remain open from 9 am to 5 pm without seeking prior written permission from the civic body. Vegetable and fruits vendors can sell their wares during the same time and so can milk vendors.

In a notification issued on Thursday, Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar said since the state government has categorised Pimpri-Chinchwad in non-Red Zone, industrial units can now function with 100 per cent staff.

Story continues below this ad

Earlier, the civic body had allowed industrial units to open with 33 per cent strength. “All industries can now function with 100 per cent strength. Those workers and staffers coming from Red Zone area means PMC limits should take prior permission of PCMC. A mechanism for this will be set up. Workers from non-Red Zone areas and non-containtment zones can attend work without permission, “said Additional Municipal Commissioner Santosh Patil.

“Though industrial units have been allowed to function with full strength, IT offices and private standalone offices will have to work with 50 per cent strength and remaining can work from home,” the PCMC chief said.

Sandeep Belsare, president of Small Scale Industries Forum said 6700 industrial units had by Thursday taken permission to operate in Pimpri-Chinchwad-Bhosari area and neighbouring industrial area. “They had permission for 33 per cent strength. Now they will operate at full strength at least from Saturday. This is a good move,” he said.

The PCMC order said hospitals, clinics, medical stores, maternity homes will be allowed to remain open round the clock

Story continues below this ad

The civic directives said shopping malls, cinema halls and multiplexes will not be allowed to open. “Any commercial building or shopping mall which has an array of shops will not be allowed to open shop. Shops which are standalone can remain open in residential areas or outside,” Patil said. Similarly, colleges and schools will not be allowed to open.

Hardikar said playgrounds and stadiums will be allowed to remain open only for exercise and running purposes.

The directives said all essential and non essential shops outside containment zones can remain open from 9 am to 5 pm. The earlier time was 10 am to 4 pm. Salons and beauty parlours have also been allowed to operate with the same time restriction. Mutton and chicken shops have also been allowed to remain open in the same time. Home delivery of foods from hotels and restaurants have been allowed from 8 am to 10 pm.

In market areas where shops selling clothes and materials are located, the shops will be allowed to function, but will be closed down if there was chaos. “In market areas like Pimpri camp, shops will be allowed to remain in one side on day and on another side next day. This will be like P1 and P2. We want to reduce chaos,” Hardikar said.

Story continues below this ad

The order said there is no need to take permission from the civic body for opening of these shops.

The order said from 7 pm to 7 am, curfew will remain in place. During this time, citizens above 65 years of age and children below 10 years are prohibited from going out of their homes. As for the private vehicles, on two-wheeler only with the rider will be allowed. On three wheelers, driver plus three persons. In four wheelers, driver plus two persons.

Meanwhile, PMPML buses allowed to run in Pimpri-Chinchwad area only with 50 per cent passenger capacity. “They will not be allowed to ferry passenger except those of essential services into Pimpri-Chinchwad,” Hardikar said.

In the 47 containment zones, shops and vegetable markets will remain open from 10 am to 2 pm. The chief PCMC has allowed all 13 vegetables markets across the city will remain closed. “Only vegetable markets at 25 designated spots will be allowed to remain from 9 am to 5 pm.,” Patil said.

Story continues below this ad

The order said mask is compulsory at public places and spitters will face action. Marriages will be allowed with 50 attendees. At funerals, 50 persons will be allowed. In shops, people should keep a distance of six feet. At residential buildings, arrangements should be made for sanitisers, soaps and thermal scanning.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories

Latest Comment
Post Comment
Read Comments