India continues to open up in fits and starts after a stringent coronavirus lockdown, as the federal government on Tuesday allowed restaurants and malls to reopen and a near free movement of people, including to places of worship.

While the metro is still closed, buses started running again in many parts of the country and rail services have resumed since Monday.

However, the country’s state governments, which have the final say under India’s federal system, have taken different steps to ease controls, mindful that the number of infections continues to climb.

India has the seventh-highest number of coronavirus cases in the world, at more than 200,000.

The capital New Delhi, one of the worst-affected cities, has allowed beauty parlours to reopen, but not malls and religious places.

The southern state of Tamil Nadu has allowed partial opening of public transport and is allowing restaurants to open from Monday at 50 per cent capacity, and with no air-conditioning.

These moves come two months after a stringent lockdown that brought economic activities to a complete halt and are the latest easing of restrictions, amid an assessment that Indians have to start living with the coronavirus threat.

India has more than 200,160 cases, with over half of these active. It has reported 6,075 deaths in a population of 1.3 billion. The number of new daily cases has continued to jump, with 9,304 people testing positive for the virus on Wednesday.

One of the worst-hit cities is Mumbai, the country’s financial capital, with 43,492 cases, and where there have been reports of patients sleeping on floors while waiting for hospital beds to open up.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged Indians to remain vigilant, maintain a 1.8m distance from one another and stay home as much as possible.

Officials have said it is not feasible to continue the lockdown, which is already causing hardship from job losses in every sector and business closures, and slowing economic growth to 3.1 per cent in the January to March quarter.

The sentiment is echoed in business circles.

“You flattened the wrong curve. It is not the infection curve, it is the GDP (gross domestic product) curve,” industrialist Rajiv Bajaj said in a conversation with Congress party leader Rahul Gan-dhi yesterday.

“We tried to implement a hard lockdown, which was still porous. So, I think we have ended up with the worst of both worlds,” he added, in rare criticism from an industry leader.

The government has said that the lockdown was essential and India’s infection numbers would be much higher without it, quoting a Boston Consulting Group model predicting that 1.2 million to 2.1 million lives would have been lost without the measures.

Still, there has been some positive news, with the recovery rate improving from 11.42 per cent on April 15 to 47.99 per cent as at yesterday, and the death rate declining to 2.83 per cent from 3.3 per cent on April 15, according to the Health Ministry.

India imposed the lockdown at the end of March, giving people just four hours’ notice.

Despite the latest measures, international flights remain grounded, a curfew is in place from 9pm to 5am, and educational institutions are still shut.

Restrictions remain in containment areas, which are pockets in cities and towns that have recorded a high number of Covid-19 cases.

Maharashtra, whose capital is the hard-hit Mumbai, is allowing shops to open on alternate days and private offices to open with 10 per cent of staff at work.

The government has been criticised over its handling of the lockdown, which has led to daily wage and migrant labourers losing their jobs and undertaking long, hazardous journeys home on foot as transport was shut down.

The fallout has continued to play out across the country, triggering the biggest reverse migrations seen in India in recent years.

Some believe the country is still not doing enough testing.

Epidemiologist T. Jacob John noted: “The number of people tested till Tuesday was 3.8 million. Even 1 per cent of the population is 14 million. Only 0.25 per cent of the total population has been tested, so 99.8 per cent is a big black box.”

Epidemiologists and doctors believe infections in India will reach their peak between this month and August.

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