The Maharashtra government on Wednesday released new guidelines to provide further relaxation from October 15 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The guidelines state that Metro services will be allowed to restart again from October 15 in a phased manner under the mission 'Begin Again'.
"@MumMetro is thankful to Government of Maharashtra for allowing metro operations. We have already initiated safety inspections and trial runs, and are set to restart passenger operations from Monday, 19th October 2020, 8:30 am," Mumbai metro tweeted.
In Mumbai, only one line that connects the eastern and western suburbs of the city was functional before COVID-19 pandemic forced a complete shutdown in March. The line, which is a critical part of the city's east-west connectivity will restart from next week with strict COVID-19 protocols, according to NDTV.
The Delhi Metro had made all the lines operational for passengers throughout the day from September 12 as it was before March 22, 2020, with all social distancing norms and guidelines in place during the travel due to ongoing pandemic.
Moreover, other states which have opened the metro network for the general public are Noida, Chennai, Kochi, Bengaluru, Mumbai Line-1, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. Under Unlock 4.0, the Centre had allowed metro services across the country to resume from September 7.
Meanwhile, the government also allowed the reopening of all state-run and private libraries from Thursday following COVID-19 protocols.
As per previous guidelines, 50 people will be allowed to be present at the wedding ceremony and 20 people in the funeral.
It also allowed business-to-business exhibitions from tomorrow outside containment zones.
Local weekly bazars, including that of animals, will also be allowed to reopen outside containment zones.
With an aim to reduce crowd, markets and shops will be allowed to remain open for two additional hours till 9 pm from tomorrow.
Earlier on September 30, the Uddhav Thackeray-led government had said that the hotels, restaurants and bars will be allowed to operate from October 5 with restricted capacity.
Maharashtra has 1,98,863 COVID-19 cases, with 40,888 deaths.
(With agency inputs)
