New Delhi: Three days after the Centre announced the criteria for classifying districts into three zones depending on the level of outbreak in each district, several states are scrambling to understand the criteria and relax restrictions post 20 April on that basis – thereby some are coming up with their own criteria.
Officials from several states said that the Centre’s guidelines are too generic in nature, and on ground the situation, vis a vis cases reported, varies from one district to another, block to block, ward to ward within a state. Criteria to demarcate one zone as red where no exemptions may be given might not be applicable to another district in the same state.
According to the criteria laid down by the Centre, the districts which will have to be classified as red zones include the “highest case load districts contributing to more than 80 per cent of cases in India” or the “highest case load districts contributing to more than 80 per cent of cases for each state in India” or “districts with doubling rate less than 4 days (calculated every Monday for last 7 days, to be determined by the state government)”.
Any district which has not reported a new case for 28 days will be classified as “Green Zones”.
While the Centre has prepared a temporary list in which 107 districts have been classified in the ‘Red Zone’, states are supposed to update this list every week.
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‘Guidelines are not clearly-worded’
However, speaking to ThePrint, officials from at least five states gave different versions of how they will be classifying districts, and subsequently be lifting restrictions from the green ones.
“The Centre’s guidelines are not clearly-worded,” said a senior official from Punjab. “While the Centre has nowhere explicitly stated that no restrictions will be lifted across a district marked as red, that is what the impression has been, and that has caused confusion.”
“We have been told that within red zones, severe restrictions will only be imposed in clusters and breakout areas…But most district level officers are under the impression that red means no activity whatsoever.”
The Centre has divided the 170 Red Zone districts into ‘large breakouts’ and ‘clusters’. While districts with more than 15 cases constitute ‘large breakouts’, those with less than 15 are called ‘clusters’.
Moreover, the official pointed out that according to the guidelines, if any district contributes to 80 per cent of the cases in the country or state, it has to be classified as a Red Zone. This, the official said, has caused immense panic among districts. “Several DMs are asking ‘What if my district has one or two cases but falls in the 80 percent category? Will it be put in the Red zone? Will no activity be allowed there?’”
Officials said that if you arrange all districts in descending order in terms of the number of districts, and then see which districts contribute to 80 per cent of cases in India as well as the state, then you can have several districts with low number of cases be included in the Red Zone category.
While Punjab had four hotspots according to their analysis, the Centre identified eight Wednesday – leading to ‘panic’ in districts, the official added.
Several DMs have asked the state government for clarifications as they prepare for relaxation of restrictions post 20 April, the official said.
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‘Cannot dilute restrictions imposed’
In a letter to all chief secretaries, home secretary Ajay Bhalla said that states and UTs “cannot dilute restrictions imposed” through the guidelines but “can impose stricter restrictions” depending on local considerations.
Karnataka on the other hand says it is the COVID task force that will decide which areas need to be categorised as Red, Orange or Green.
Suresh Kumar, a minister in the Karnataka government told ThePrint that Karnataka’s COVID task force has come out with a formula where they will identify the containment zones and block them out. Red zones will be examined, and the task force will subsequently decide whether to block off the entire area and make it a containment zone, or just cordon off the block area where a Covid-19 positive patient has been found.
For example, Bengaluru has 198 BBMP wards, if any ward is seen as a Red zone, that area will be made a containment area. The whole ward need not be made a Red zone. Just the area where the positive patient is found will be contained, Kumar added. The panel will assess the spike in cases and testing before declaring an area a Red Zone.
Similarly, an official from Tamil Nadu said that restrictions will have to differentially be lifted within districts, and therefore the mapping into Red, Green, Orange of districts may not be entirely helpful.
“It seems like it is just a statistical yardstick for the central government to see which district stands where in comparison to the rest of the country, but practically speaking, that is not how it will work,” the official said.
In West Bengal, the government has refused to use the terminology coined by the Centre altogether. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has consistently denied that there are any hotspots in West Bengal, instead using the word micro-planning blocks.
In a recent press conference after the Centre came up with the guidelines, Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha told reporters that while the state is sharing data with the Centre, health is a state subject, and one should not fall for the classification into Red or Green zones. The state government will manage the crisis the way it needs to, Sinha added.
In Bihar, on the other hand, an official from Patna said that the state is going to lift restrictions only on the basis of the Centre’s list as of now, and then “figure out” going ahead. “There is still some degree of confusion. For example, what if a district contributes 80 percent of the cases in the state, but has just one case, it will be more prudent to cordon off one areas as the containment zone and resume activity in the rest of the district the same way it is being done in orange zones…All those confusions will hopefully sort themselves out gradually,” the official said.
The concern is especially true given that Bihar as a state has fewer number of cases (42) than other states.
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‘No scope for confusion’
Asked about these confusions, a member of the Centre’s taskforce said that there is “no scope for confusion”.
“Within Red Zones, some activity can happen depending on the states’ own analysis…If there is any confusion, it will be taken care of after the first cycle of updation.”
The taskforce member also added that the analysis of what happens within the Red Zone has to be the state prerogative. The grading in Red, Orange and Green zones is meant to give a larger national picture on the basis of which actions can be taken. It is basically a handy reference point for the whole country, which will give some degree of insight into where India stands on a weekly basis.