As India has been reporting more number of cases and an increase in the death toll each day due to Coronavirus (COVID-19) amid the unprecedented lockdown, the Central government is highly considering to extend the embargo and restrictions to grip up the fight against the spread of the global pandemic in its territory. 

The Indian government has imposed the nationwide lockdown on March 24th and it will be in place till April 14th. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been chairing meetings through video-conference with the people of various channels regarding the latest developments. Our sources say that Modi has taken important decisions towards extending the lockdown and he has reflected the same in the all-party meet that he chaired on Wednesday in Delhi. The leaders from the national and regional parties have attended the session during which Modi divulged that the current developments must be dealt with by taking hard and difficult decisions and added that the lockdown won't be lifted in one go. The Central government would be taking the final decision on whether or not to extend the lockdown after Modi's next video-conferencing meet with the Chief Ministers that has been scheduled on Saturday - April 11th, 2020.

Tamil Nadu has become the second Indian state with more positive cases after Maharashtra and Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami has recently convened a meet with the district collectors through video-conference during which he directed the collectors to enhance the mechanisms to ensure that the state doesn't report with community spread and instructed to take stern action against the curfew violators. He also issued guidelines and advice for the worst-hit districts to tackle the spread.

According to our sources, most of the collectors stated that the government must extend the lockdown for an additional 15 days as the results are yet to ascertain whether the state has community spread. By highlighting that the impact of the lockdown may lead to a hunger crisis as the purchasing power among the people and the supply of essential goods have been getting reduced, they asked the government to initiate precautionary measures towards overcoming such crisis. Following the conclusion, Chief Minister chaired the meet with the health and revenue officials where the officials put out the fact that the number of the affected cases would be increasing in the coming days.

The state would be equipped with rapid testing kits imported from China and the results through these tests would light up more cases adding more challenges to the government to trace the contacts of the positive cases. Most of the current positive cases have attended the Jamaat Conference in Delhi and reporting of new cases has increased the fear of the possibilities of community spread. The officials have stated that the current period of lockdown must be extended so that the people would remain under self-isolation to lower the community spread. 

The state government has been considering to offer door-to-door services to deliver essential goods and our sources pressed that the 21-day lockdown is an unprecedented experiment and the extension of such lockdown for more days to curb the spread of the virus implies that the nation is heading towards an emergency. When we reached out to Devasagayam IAS, who was in service during the emergency period imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he said the measures taken by the Center are inappropriate and it's not time to impose curfew under section 144 and these measures bring skepticism that Modi has decided to impose financial emergency in the nation.

Also read: Modi's all-party meet: Lockdown is likely to get extended?