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KARACHI: Amid a surge in India’s Delta variant cases, the Sindh government has decided to impose fresh curbs on movement, restricting business hours and restaurants operations, and closing down marriage halls and educational institutes.
The decision was made in the provincial task force meeting for COVID-19 headed by Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah.
The meeting decided to restrict business hours for shopping malls and markets between 6:00 am to 6:00 pm besides declaring Friday and Sunday as safe days. Grocery shops, bakeries, and pharmacies will be exempted from the closure
The marriage halls and other public gatherings and shrines will also be closed down from Monday onwards while restaurants will not be allowed to operate dine-in and dine-out facilities after July 25.
The eateries will only be permitted to conduct take-away facilities.
The educational institutes will also remain shut from Monday onwards, the decision taken by the covid task force said, however, the examinations will continue as usual.
The private and public sectors will only be allowed to operate with 50 percent attendance at a time. “We will be ensuring a complete implementation of these decisions,” the chief minister said while chairing the meeting.
Besides this, Chief Minister Sindh has also said that the PTA would be approached through the federal government to send messages to users to get vaccinated and those not getting a jab in a week will face blocking of their SIMs.
The chief minister further directed the provincial authorities to communicate the Sindh government’s decision to the NCOC.
“We will decide on stopping salaries of the government employees who are still unvaccinated from next month,” he said and directed the secretary of finance to reach out to the accountant general (AG) Sindh in this regard.