Statewide complete lockdown on August 28 cancelled

Kolkata: The Bengal government on Wednesday withdrew the complete lockdown on August 28 in view to iron out difficulties "to conduct businesses and banking operations".

As per the earlier announcement, there were five remaining days in August when the complete lockdown was scheduled to be imposed on August 20, 21, 27, 28 and 31. But the state government has received a series of inputs from different quarters stating the difficulties "to conduct businesses and banking operations" if complete lockdown is imposed on August 28 as it would lead to the closure of banks for five consecutive days in the last week of the month. So the state government has decided to withdraw the complete "twice-a-week" lockdown on August 28. As a result, there will be a complete statewide lockdown on four more days in this month — August 20, 21, 27 and 31.

The move of the state government in withdrawing the complete lockdown on August 28 has been appreciated by different business houses. There will be a complete lockdown on August 27 (Thursday) and again on August 30 that is on Monday. With Saturday and Sunday in between, banks would have remained closed for five days at a stretch if the lockdown on August 28 (Friday) had not been withdrawn.