Mumbai shops allowed to open 7 days a week as situation improves in the city

Mumbai: In a sign of the improved situation in Mumbai in its fight against Covid-19, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Monday allowed shops to open on all seven days a week as against on odd-even days as mandated earlier.
In another important decision, liquor shops in the city have also been permitted to begin counter sales. Earlier only home delivery of liquor was allowed.

The BMC said that the malls and market places could be allowed to operate from August 5 as per the norms set by the state government, but food courts/ restaurants in these malls would not be allowed to serve food to customers within the establishment and takeaway food through aggregators would be allowed.

Incidentally, the civic body’s order on Monday saying, “For shopping purposes, people are expected to use nearby/ neighbourhood markets only. Long distance travel for non-essential items will not be permitted,” has caused further confusion as it has put no curbs on travel within the Mumbai Metropolitan Region comprising Mumbai, Thane, Vasai-Virar, Panvel.

The civic body has also decided to allow ‘non-team sports’ like golf, outdoor firing, outdoor gymnastics, outdoor tennis, outdoor badminton and outdoor malkhamb from August 5. Swimming pools in the city are still out of bounds.

These relaxations follow the steady drop in corona cases in the city with less than 1,200 cases being reported each day for the last several weeks.

Mumbai Reports 970 Fresh Cases

Maharashtra’s Covid-19 tally on Monday increased to 4,50,196 with the addition of 8,968 fresh cases, while 266 deaths, including 46 in Mumbai, took the fatality count to 15,842, state health department said.

Mumbai city and suburban areas (MMR region) reported 970 and 2,957 fresh cases, respectively. With this, Mumbai has so far reported 1,17,406 cases and 6,493 deaths. The wider MMR region now has 2,49,111 cases and 9,970 deaths.