The ongoing 21-day nationwide lockdown may be extended till the end of June, according to a new study by American consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG). India may start lifting the restrictions only between the fourth week of June and the second week of September, says the report.
According to BCG reports, the delay in lifting the restrictions was attributed to challenges faced by India in terms of health system preparedness and record of public policy effectiveness. The report also said that India might witness a peak in the number of coronavirus cases by the third week of June.
Amidst much speculation the Cabinet secretary Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba last week clarified that the government had no plans to further extend the 21-day nationwide lockdown, which ends on April 14. The prime minister Nardnedra Modi meanwhile hinted at a “staggered” return to normalcy, after which BCG issued a statement that its study had been taken out of context. “BCG regularly does scenario planning to support our clients with all kind of business issues. We analyse internally and externally gathered data to formulate these scenarios…….. The projections contained in the document vary by 100-1000x, and were built to study one range of possible outcomes……. This is not an official view from BCG, and BCG has not released any data purporting to state how the pandemic will pan out.”
The nation was put under a 21 days lockdown on the 24th March by the BJP Government citing that the chain of transmission of the highly contagious disease needs to be broken. As of 5th April the country has crossed the 3000 mark in the number of positive cases and the death toll in the country stands at 77.
-India Legal Bureau