Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a video conference with chief ministers of different states and Union Territories on June 16 and June 17 about the future of lockdown and the current situation of the pandemic.
All states and UTs are divided into two groups and two days are dedicated so that the prime minister can listen to all the chief ministers, say official sources.
They pointed out that Delhi, which has been witnessing a sudden spike in numbers, will feature on the second day.
There have been at least five such interactions so far with the fifth one taking place on May 11.
India registered 1,41,842 active Covid-19 cases and 8,498 deaths, as of yesterday evening.
With lockdown 5.0, which is widely touted as Unlock 1.0, kicking in, the Covid numbers in many states have rapidly started to spike, which has become a cause of concern for the Centre as well as the states.
Already, central teams are being deputed to provide technical support and handhold the state health departments and municipal health officials in reviewing steps being taken to tackle Covid-19 in six key metros — Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi and Bengaluru.
The lockdown, enforced on March 25, was originally supposed to end on April 14.
It was then extended to May 3, and then again to May 17. The lockdown 5.0 will come to an end on June 30.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi yesterday again attacked the central government, calling it arrogant and incompetent to handle the coronavirus crisis as the nation became the fourth worst affected country.
Rahul Gandhi tweeted: “India is firmly on its way to winning the wrong race.”
“A horrific tragedy, resulting from a lethal blend of arrogance and incompetence,” he added.
With a record high single-day spike of 10,956 cases, India totalled 2,97,535 cases to surpass the UK which has 2,92,860 cases.
Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra yesterday touched 101,141  - higher than Canada’s 97,500, standing 17th on the world Corona dashboard — while Mumbai’s deaths crossed the the 2,000 mark to reach 2,044, officials said.
Maharashtra yesterday notched another 3-digit toll — 127 Covid-19 deaths — but down by 25 from Thursday’s record high of 152, and marked its second highest new cases of 3,493, down from Thursday’s highest of 3,607.
Maharashtra has been recording 100-plus fatalities and over 3,000 new patients almost daily for the past 12 days.
Despite the gloomy data on the ever-increasing number of Covid-19 deaths and cases, the state continues to record a stunning recovery rate, standing now at 47.03% and a mortality rate of 3.07%.