Cabinet Secretary held a meeting with Municipal Commissioners, District Magistrates of 13 COVID-19 hit cities to take a review of the situation.  Chief Secretaries of all States and Union Territories concerned attended the meeting.

The meeting bears significance as these 13 cities are considered to be the worst Coronavirus affected locations and constitute about 70 per cent of the positive cases in the country.

The 13 focus cities are Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi / New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Thane, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata / Howrah, Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Jaipur, Jodhpur, Chengalpattu and Thiruvallur (Tamil Nadu).

The measures taken by the officials and the staff of the municipal corporations for the management of COVID-19 cases were reviewed in the meeting.

The central government has already issued guidelines on management of COVID-19 in urban settlements.

Highlights of this strategy include work on high risk factors, indices such as confirmation rate, fatality rate, doubling rate, tests per million people etc.

Centre has stressed that containment zones are to be geographically defined based on factors like mapping of cases and contacts and their geographical dispersion. This would enable in demarcating a well defined perimeter and enforcing the strict protocol of lockdown.

Municipal corporations can decide if residential colonies, mohallas, municipal wards or police-station areas, municipal zones, towns can be designated as containment zones, as required.

The cities were advised that the area should be appropriately defined by the district administration and local urban body with technical inputs from local level.

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VRRK/AK