Image Source: TRIBUNE

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation was followed by the Union Home Ministry issuing detailed guidelines on implementing the 21-day lockdown but there was no clarity on how the accounts departments of shut down sectors such as universities, hotels, road transport authorities, etc., will process the payment of salaries to the employees. While the government has exempted several essential service employees, there is a longer list of establishments and institutions that are completely locked down, including their accounts departments that need to process the salaries before they are sent to the banks for disbursement.

Exempted

1.All shops selling groceries, meat and fish, fruits and vegetables and animal fodder
2.Banks, insurance offices and ATMs
3.Hospitals, chemists and all related establishments
4.Print and electronic media
5.Defence, Central Armed Police, Police, Home Guard and Treasury
6.Electricity, sanitation, water and municipal bodies
7.Telecom, internet and broadcasting services
8.Delivery of all essential goods
9.Petrol pump, LPG, Petroleum and gas retail outlets
10.Power generation and transmission units
11.Private security services
12.Capital and debt market services

Under lockdown

1.All manufacturing units (except essentials)
2.All offices of the government of India, its subordinate offices and PSUs
3.All rail, road, air and marine passenger transportation
4.All hospitality services
5.All places of worship, educational institutions parks, sports centers etc
6.Anyone who has arrived from abroad after February 15 to be in quarantine

The exemption to banks and ATMs will allow employees to withdraw the salaries, but the issue that hangs fire is that with no accounts staff of locked down sectors permitted to venture out, it will be difficult to compute the salary slips.

In a relief that would have curbed panic buying witnessed in areas not under curfew had it been clarified earlier, the Home Ministry note exempted all shops selling groceries, meat and fish, fruits and vegetables and animal fodder from the purview of the lockdown.

All gathering of any sort have been banned except funerals where participation has been limited to 20 persons.

District magistrates have been told to appoint executive magistrates as “Incident Commanders” who will enforce restrictions on the movement of persons, but not goods and authorised to book violators under Sections 51 to 60 of the Disaster Management Act and Section 188 of the IPC.

The government said the guidelines were necessitated because though the steps taken by state governments and UTs were in the right direction, there was lack of uniformity in the measures adopted as well as in their implementation and that may not serve the aim of containing the spread of the virus.

The order directing ministries, states and UTs to take these measures was issued by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), chaired by PM Modi, under section 6(2)(i) of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.