nagpur the strict weeklong lockdown gets even stricter from wednesday municipal commissioner radhakrishnan b on tuesday announced that all standalone shops dealing with essential commodities except medical shops can operate only till 1pm vegetable and fruit cart vendors will also be allowed to operate in the day a notification from the municipal commissioner saidowing to the spike in novel coronavirus cases district guardian minister nitin raut had imposed a weeklong lockdown in the city and district from march 15 to 21 however essential services such as standalone grocery shops vegetable and fruit shops meat shops milk booths etc were allowed to transact business till 9pmpolice commissioner amitesh kumar on monday suggested modification in curbs according to him essential shops should be allowed to operate from 12noon to 4pm so that the combined numbers of officegoers and shoppers does not crowd the city roads during morning hoursour objective was to ensure that officegoers and purchasers do not step out in the common time space the latest order will be challenging for us to control the crowd of officegoers and purchasers in the same hours but we shall revise our plans accordingly to ensure the rush is controlled and managed he said the cp had also requested the civic body to allow teachers to work from home discontinue construction activities and institute checks on attendances at private premises apart from the timing of essential outlets decision on other suggestions from police to nmc is yet to be takennmc reviewed day one of the lockdown and found that many people were venturing out without a valid reason most gave lame excuse of going to markets to purchase vegetables or grocery items which needed to be curtailed kumar said so we decided to further tighten the guidelines of weeklong lockdown the civic chief addedradhakrishnan also urged people to strictly follow lockdown and covidappropriate normscitizens said the amendment will defeat the purpose of weeklong lockdown tejinder singh renu secretary vidarbha taxpayers association said with positive cases rising sharply in nagpur our responsible civic chief is taking all necessary steps to ensure furthermore spread by keeping citizens indoors however restricting essential commodities shop timings till 1pm will probably increase crowding as most citizens will reach shops during the limited time of 34 hours this may defeat distancing normsto my knowledge most of the cases reported in the city are asymptomatic we need to find more about its viral load and if this covid strain is not so destructive and relax and plan lockdowns accordingly renu said if we create more panic it could trigger migration issues and the economy plunging beyond repair he said