Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray will announce lockdown decision today: Chhagan Bhujbal

File image of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray (Image: Twitter/@ShivSena)

Maharashtra Food and Civil Supplies Minister Chhagan Bhujbal has said that Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will announce a decision about lockdown on April 21.

"We have made all the efforts to minimise the COVID-19 figures. He will announce the decision (to impose lockdown) tomorrow after finalising a detailed Standard Operating Procedure," Bhujbal said. "We may have to impose restrictions on the local train movement in Mumbai too, he said.

"We may have to impose restrictions on the local train movement in Mumbai too, he said.

Delhi is under a 6-day complete lockdown, Jharkhand declared a one-week lockdown from April 22, while Telangana announced night curfew while Uttar Pradesh ordered a weekend lockdown.

In his nearly 20-minute address to the nation, his first this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday asserted that lockdowns should be the "last resort" to deal with the raging Covid-19 pandemic, and sought to deliver a message to reassure the nation that his government was making all efforts to augment medical care as the country was again faced with a "big battle" against the virus.

Modi also asked states to convince migrant workers, a large number of whom have begun leaving for their home states in distress following lockdowns in cities like Delhi and Mumbai, to stay put where they are with a guarantee that they will be vaccinated in the coming days and will also not lose their livelihoods.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra on Tuesday reported 62,097 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the tally to 39,60,359, while 519 more patients succumbed to the infection. The new fatalities pushed the statewide toll to 61,343. There are 6,83,856 active coronavirus cases in Maharashtra.