Lockdown 4.0: Plan to ease restrictions in Delhi to be announced on Monday, says Kejriwal

Centre's lockdown 4.0 guidelines are largely in line with the proposal sent by the Delhi government, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Sunday as he announced that a detailed plan to ease restrictions in the national capital will be announced on Monday.

In a series of tweets, Kejriwal said that his government had utilised the lockdown period to prepare the city's healthcare system in case there is a spike in COVID-19 cases.

"Centre's guidelines are largely in line with the proposal sent by Delhi govt based on suggestions of lakhs of Delhiites. We have used the lockdown period to prepare our healthcare system if Corona cases increase, but it is now time to relax the restrictions to some extent," he said in a tweet.

"Delhi govt will prepare the detailed plan for Delhi based on the Centre's guidelines and announce it tomorrow (Monday)," he said in another tweet.

In a statement issued earlier, the Delhi government said that the Centre's guidelines for the fourth phase lockdown are in the right direction of opening up economy and leaving it to states to work out the details.

"We do expect a slight increase in cases when the economy reopens and Delhi is prepared to deal with it. We have always been saying that we all will now have to learn to live with Corona," the statement said.

"We used the last two month lockdown period to prepare ourselves for dealing with coronavirus by improving necessary logistics and health infrastructure," the government said in the statement.

On Sunday, centre extended ongoing lockdown till May 31 and said that prohibition on all public gatherings, closure of schools, malls and restaurants, and suspension of flight and Metro services will remain in force till the last end of this month.