Telangana CM calls for extending 'janata curfew' to 24 hours

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao called for a 24-hour shutdown in the state from 6 am on Sunday as part of the efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Hyderabad:Extending support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for a 14-hour-long 'janata curfew' on March 22, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao appealed to citizens to extend the self-imposed curfew to 24 hours in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Addressing a press conference here, Rao said, "In a bid to save yourself, your family, our state, country and entire human community, I fold my hands and appeal to the people of Telangana to follow self-discipline and not step out of their homes from 6 am on March 21 to 6 am on March 22."

He further appealed specifically to senior citizens above the age of 60 and children below the age of 10 to avoid stepping out of their homes for the next few weeks.

He said since this move for the safety and well-being of the society, everyone should observe it voluntarily. He announced that no buses and trains including local trains and Hyderabad Metro trains would run during the period.

The chief minister informed that barring essential services like health, milk, water and power supply everything would be shut. He said Telangana should be a model for the entire country.

Read:Confirmed positive cases climb to 298 in India

"Telangana is one unified community. We fought for our state together by showing our strength. It is now time for us to show this stregth again," he said.

He also appealed to people to come out of their houses or on their balconies for 2-4 minutes at 5 pm to clap for those in the medical profession rendering services in this crisis.

KCR, as Rao is popularly known, said if required the state would go for total shutdown to contain the spread of Coronavirus. The state so far reported 21 COVID-19 positive cases and all of them had come from abroad.

Read:Odisha CM orders lockdown in the state till March 29

He said Telangana was also considering shutting down its borders with Maharashtra after 2-3 days.

Maharashtra has recorded the highest number of cases (52) out of 258 cases reported so far across the country.

He said 20,000 passengers arrived in Telangana from abroad since March 1. Out of these 11,000 traced and kept under home quarantine.

The chief minister said 5,274 teams formed to trace all those who returned from abroad this month. He appealed to all such people to voluntarily report to the authorities and assured that the government will take care of all the expenses of their treatment and that they would not be troubled.

(With inputs from IANS)