To strictly en­force the coun­try­wide lock-down of work­places in the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor and en­sure that peo­ple stay put in their homes and do not step out­side their houses even for es­sen­tial needs, the gov­ern­ment of In­dia has is­sued a strict or­der and guide­lines. 

AS THE PEO­PLE OF THE WORLD GRAP­PLE WITH THE CORO­N­AVIRUS, also known as Covid19, which has con­fronted hu­mankind in a man­ner not known to the in­hab­i­tants of this planet like never be­fore, the Min­istry of Home Af­fairs of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia has is­sued an or­der pur­suant to the ad­dress to the coun­try by the In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi.

The MHA of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia Or­der of the 21-day lock­down and the Min­istry of Home Af­fairs Guide­lines for en­force­ment are ex­haus­tive and clearly de­pict the in­tent of the gov­ern­ment to en­sure strict com­pli­ance.

The or­der of the Min­istry of Home Af­fairs states that “the Na­tional Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Au­thor­ity (NDMA), is sat­is­fied that the coun­try is threat­ened with the spread of COVlD—19 epi­demic. which has al­ready been de­clared as a pan­demic by the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion, and has con­sid­ered it nec­es­sary to take ef­fec­tive mea­sures to pre­vent its spread across the coun­try and that there is a need for con­sis­tency in the ap­pli­ca­tion and im­ple­men­ta­tion of var­i­ous mea­sures across the coun­try while en­sur­ing main­te­nance of es­sen­tial ser­vices and sup­plies, in­clud­ing health in­fra­struc­ture.”

The ex­haus­tive guide­lines is­sued by the Min­istry have been sent to all States and Union Ter­ri­to­ries giv­ing de­tails of which of­fices are to be closed and the ex­cep­tions thereto. It also men­tions the ex­cep­tions given to the health­care in­dus­try, bank­ing and in­sur­ance of­fices.

“The above con­tain­ment mea­sures will re­main in force, in all parts of the coun­try for a pe­riod of 21 days with ef­fect from 25.03.2020.”

“Any per­son vi­o­lat­ing these con­tain­ment mea­sures will be li­able to be pro­ceeded against as per the pro­vi­sions of Sec­tion 51 to 60 of the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Act, 2005, be­sides le­gal ac­tion un­der Sec. 188 of the IPC (as per Ap­pen­dix),” and pre­scribes a mul­ti­tude of penal­ties for var­i­ous of­fences in­clud­ing by those in any of the gov­ern­ment de­part­ments.

The note reads that “All per­sons who have ar­rived into In­dia af­ter 15.02.2020, and all such per­sons who have been di­rected by health care per­son­nel to re­main un­der strict home/​in­sti­tu­tional quar­an­tine for a pe­riod as de­cided by lo­cal Health Au­thor­i­ties, fail­ing which they will be li­able to le­gal ac­tion un­der Sec. 188 of the IPC.

In a di­rect mes­sage, the guide­lines state that “All places of wor­ship shall be closed for pub­lic. No re­li­gious con­gre­ga­tions will be per­mit­ted, with­out any ex­cep­tion.” All gath­er­ings have been called off and all ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tions closed.

All print and elec­tronic in­dus­tries have been asked to work from home only.
Though the or­der says that all es­sen­tial goods, in­clud­ing food, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, med­ical equip­ment through E-com­merce, deputy com­mis­sion­ers in the dis­tricts of Pun­jab are urg­ing peo­ple to stay home and telling them through Face­book that med­i­cines and home sup­plies will be de­liv­ered at home.

The ex­cep­tions in­clude Petrol pumps, LPG, Pe­tro­leum and gas re­tail and stor­age out­lets, power gen­er­a­tion, trans­mis­sion and dis­tri­b­u­tion units and ser­vices and Cap­i­tal and debt mar­ket ser­vices as no­ti­fied by the Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Board of In­dia, Cold stor­age and ware­hous­ing ser­vices and Pri­vate se­cu­rity ser­vices, fire, law and or­der and emer­gency ser­vices.

All hos­pi­tal­ity ser­vices are to re­main sus­pended ex­cept those whose fa­cil­i­ties are be­ing utilised for quar­an­tine ser­vices.

The note also says that “In case of fu­ner­als, a con­gre­ga­tion of not more than twenty per­sons will be per­mit­ted.”

Be­ware. Stay Home. Stay blessed. “Any per­son vi­o­lat­ing these con­tain­ment mea­sures will be li­able to be pro­ceeded against as per the pro­vi­sions of Sec­tion 51 to 60 of the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Act, 2005, be­sides le­gal ac­tion un­der Sec. 188 of the IPC.” https://​t.co/​Ft­pqT­fUcXp

— Jag­mo­han Singh (@thewsned­i­tor) March 24, 2020

Tak­ing a very strict tone, the guide­lines cat­e­gor­i­cally say that, “Any per­son vi­o­lat­ing these con­tain­ment mea­sures will be li­able to be pro­ceeded against as per the pro­vi­sions of Sec­tion 51 to 60 of the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Act, 2005, be­sides le­gal ac­tion un­der Sec. 188 of the IPC (as per Ap­pen­dix),” and pre­scribes a mul­ti­tude of penal­ties for var­i­ous of­fences in­clud­ing by those in any of the gov­ern­ment de­part­ments.