Businesses and industry in Rajkot city to start reopening from May 14

“Since there was no new case (of Covid) in the last one week, the state government decided to open businesses from Thursday,” Kumar added. The industries and businesses that open in Rajkot city will have to follow the Standard Operating procedures prescribed to the industries, the official said.

Talking about the virtual meeting CM Rupani had with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, the official said, “the chief minister also informed (PM Modi), that time has come to take adequate precautions and exit from a number of controls (of lockdown) and move towards normalcy with a definite plan. At the same time, the government will fully concentrate it’s strength on dealing with the containment zones in the state,” Kumar said.

The chief minister on Tuesday also held a video conference with all the officials and district collectors and police officials to discuss the strategy for the near future. Rupani had also sought feedback from the district collectors regarding steps that could be taken to streamline the social and economic activities in the state. “The chief minister also took suggest regarding what services can be restarted in phases in the coming days; what are the precautions to be taken; how to restart public transport, taxis and cabs,” the official added.

Ashwani Kumar said that about 8 lakh workers are now working in the industries of the state after relaxations were given on April 20. “The current electricity consumption in the state is about 68-70 percent of the consumption that used to happen in normal times. This means that normalcy is slowly returning to the industries,” the official said.