The home ministry has opened up multiple services in green and orange zones, thereby allowing ecommerce players such as Amazon and Flipkart to offer non-essential deliveries in areas that have no or a few coronavirus infections as it extended the nationwide lockdown by another two weeks to May 17.
Ecommerce deliveries will be allowed only for essential items in the red zones, it said in a note on May 1. To classify red green and orange zones, the government will primarily rely on data on coronavirus infections.
“The classification of districts as Red Zones will take into account the total number of active cases, doubling rate of confirmed cases, the extent of testing and surveillance feedback from the districts,” the notification said.
Besides online deliveries, the government has opened cab aggregator services in orange and green zones as well.
In the orange zones, in addition to activities permitted in red zones, taxis and cab aggregators will be permitted with one driver and one passenger only.
Most of the metropolitan cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad have been declared red zones. This means that ecommerce companies cannot go back to normal and these cities drive maximum traffic.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
