The Centre has finalsed the criteria for delimitation of various zones after May 3. It has identified at least 130 districts as red zones, 284 orange zones and 319 green zones.
According to a letter written by Health Secretary Preeti Sudan to the Chief Secretaries of all States and UTs, all the states have to delineate the containment areas and buffer zones in the identified red and orange zone districts and notify the same.
The letter said, the national capital has at least 11 red zones, Uttar Pradesh 19 red zones, 36 orange zones and 20 green zones while, the state of Haryana has 2 red zones, 18 orange zones and 2 green zones.
The Gutam buddha Nagar in Uttar Pradesh has been identified as a red zone district while, Ghaziabad has been designated as an orange zone. The national capital has no orange and green zone; there are only red zones according to the letter.
In Maharashtra, Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Nashik come in the red zone.
In West Bengal, Kolkata, Howrah, 24 Parganas both North and South have been identified as red zones while Hooghly, Nadia, Murshidabad etc have been marked as orange zones.
In the southern part of India, Kerala has 2 red zones and 10 orange zones, while Tamil Nadu has 12 red zones and 24 orange zones.
The Health Secretary said that the list will be revised on a weekly basis or earlier and communicated to states for further follow-up action in consonance with the directions issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 based on field feedback and additional analysis at state level, states may designate additional red or orange zones as appropriate.
However, states may not relax the zonal classification of districts classified as red or orange as communicated by the Ministry. This classification is multi-factorial and takes into consideration incidence of cases, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback to classify the districts.
A district will be considered under green zone, if there are no confirmed cases so far or there is no reported case since the last 21 days in the district.
( With inputs from IANS )