DDMA likely to meet on Friday to discuss lifting of remaining Covid curbs

The Delhi Disaster Management Authority is expected to meet on Friday for a discussion to lift the remaining Covid restrictions here, including night curfew, half seating capacity in bars and restaurants, and closure of non-essential shops by 8 pm, official sources said.

Several restrictions like weekend curfew, half seating capacity in metro trains and buses, closure of multiplexes and cinemas, among others, were lifted by the authority in the recent past, with dissipation of the Omicron-fuelled third Covid wave.

However, restrictions like only one weekly market permitted in a municipal zone, no standing passengers in buses and metro trains, 50 per cent cap on seating capacity in restaurants, bars and cinemas, and no activity except weddings in banquet halls, are yet to be relaxed.

"The fresh cases of Covid as well as positivity rate have gone down much compared to the peak of the pandemic in January. The DDMA (Delhi Disaster Management Authority) is likely to meet coming Friday to discuss lifting remaining restrictions," said an official source on Tuesday.

The DDMA in its meeting on February 4 extended imposition of night curfew from 11 PM instead of 10 PM to 5 AM.

Demands have been raised from several quarters to lift the remaining restrictions citing normalising of the Covid situation in the city.

The Chamber of Trade and Industry (CTI), an association of traders in Delhi, has written a letter to DDMA Chairman and Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal demanding that a meeting of the DDMA should be convened at the earliest.

"If Covid cases and the infection rate are decreasing in the capital, then the rest of the restrictions should be completely removed," the organisation has said.

"There has been a positivity rate of less than one per cent in Delhi. On Monday, only 360 new cases of the coronavirus came. Beds are lying vacant in hospitals. The wave of the coronavirus in Delhi is nearing its end," said CTI chairman Brijesh Goyal and president Subhash Khandelwal.

Currently, there is night curfew from 11 pm to 5 am that causes a lot of problems. Shops in Delhi markets are allowed to open till 8 pm. Its time should also increase, they said.

Goyal said that people associated with the event and exhibition industry are also worried. They are unable to work, he said.

Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta has also written to Baijal requesting him to allow visitors in temples and other religious places.

Currently religious places are permitted to open without visitors.