GUWAHATI, August 2: All inter-district passenger transport services and movement of people to and from other districts in Assam will resume from August 16, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma informed on Monday.
The decision has been taken as the COVID-19 situation in the state has improved considerably of late with 784 positive cases reported on Sunday while overall positivity percentage (784 cases out of 91,123 tests done) has come down to 0.86 percent.
Inter-district movement in Assam had remained suspended since May 21 this year following a surge in COVID-19 cases (over 6000 cases per day at that time) during the second wave of the pandemic.
The restriction was imposed after the Assam State Disaster Management Authority had then observed that with unabated inter-district movement, the COVID-19 containment measures were not yielding the desired level of reduction of cases.
Addressing mediapersons on Monday, the chief minister further said that there would be no “total containment” in any district of Assam.
“However, in the districts of Lakhimpur and Golaghat (which have been under total containment amid high COVID cases), curfew will come into force at 2 pm while shops will close by 1 pm. However, in the other districts, curfew shall come into force by 5pm while shops will close at 4 pm.
The COVID-19 situation in Assam has improved considerably with 784 positive cases reported on Sunday with the overall positivity percentage (784 cases out of 91,123 tests done) coming down to 0.86 percent.
“We will review the situation in the next seven days. So if the COVID situation remains the same by then, we plan to further relax the curfew time in the districts by another hour from next Monday (August 9),” Sarma said.
In regard to opening of educational institutions, the chief minister said the education department was contemplating opening of all final year classes – Class 10, Class 12, degree and post-graduate – by September 1, 2021 if the COVID situation remained under control.
“However, if there’s a third wave and the COVID situation worsens by September 1, we cannot take any risk because it concerns the health and safety of students,” he said.