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Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation chief Iqbal Singh Chahal on Friday said that all restrictions in the city will be lifted once all citizens are vaccinated against Covid-19.
The Mumbai civic body is aiming to vaccinate all residents by the end of November this year, Chahal said in an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18.
“We have set the target to inoculate 100 per cent of the population by Diwali. If that happens, we are going to open up everything," Chahal said in the interview.
The BMC Chief further said that children below 18 years of age will be allowed to visit shops, malls, and restaurants from August 15.
Most recently, with the declining cases in the city, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday had announced that Mumbai citizens who are fully vaccinated can use local train services from August 15.
The process for offline verifications to issue railway monthly pass for fully vaccinated individuals began on August 11 at 53 railway stations in BMC jurisdiction and 109 railway stations in the Mumbai metropolitan region.
There will be two consecutive sessions from 7 am to 11 pm, said Brihanmumbai Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, as per an official release shared by BMC.
The process of making this facility available online began yesterday.
So far, 21 lakh Mumbai residents have been vaccinated with both doses of vaccine, the BMC chief said in the interview.
All restaurants and shopping malls in the city will also be allowed to operate till 10 pm from August 15. The restaurants can function at 50 per cent capacity.
The decision on reopening cinema halls, theatres, and multiplexes will be taken within the next 15 days, Chahal said.
The standard operation procedure (SOP) for Ganesh Chaturthi will be similar to last year in a bid to curb cases.
He further added that the state Task Force has alerted that the city should be prepared for a possible third wave in September.
According to media reports, the city recorded its first death from the Delta Plus variant of Covid-19 in July.
A 63-year-old woman who passed away on July 27 is reported to be Mumbai's first Delta Plus death.
She was among seven patients in Mumbai who have tested positive for the Delta Plus variant, a mutation of the highly contagious Delta variant which drove the deadly second wave of the pandemic in April-May this year.
Daily cases
On August 12, till 6 pm, the city had reported 279 new cases, while 242 patients had been discharged, as per the official BMC data.
The total recovered patients in the city are 7,17,191. The overall recovery rate is 97 per cent.
The city had 2,928 total active patients. The doubling rate in the city is 1,819 days while the growth rate between August 5 and August 11 is 0.04 per cent, as per the data.
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