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Nitish announces lockdown in Bihar till May 15

A crisis management group had been tasked to frame guidelines for the lockdown

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar | PTI Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar | PTI

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced on Tuesday that a lockdown would be enforced in the state until May 15 to curb COVID-19 cases.

Nitish tweeted the decision came following discussions with ministers and officials and noted a crisis management group had been tasked to frame guidelines for the lockdown.

The announcement came a day after the Nitish Kumar government was rebuked by the Patna High Court over its handling of the COVID-19 situation. A division bench of Justices Chakradhari Sharan Singh and Mohit Kumar Shah asked the state advocate general to discuss the need for a lockdown with the chief minister.

“There is no action plan with you. Whatever plan you have submitted, it’s not up to the mark and no effective steps have been taken since April 15 when we started hearing the PILs on the pandemic,” the bench was quoted as saying by The Times of India.

Bihar reported 11,407 new COVID-19 cases and 82 deaths from the virus on Monday. This took the state's total tally of cases to 5,09,047.

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