April 9, 2020, New Delhi: 15 days of the 21-day lockdown have passed and with another week to go, the talks of when and how the country wide lockdown will be lifted has become the main discussion point among people. LocalCircles conducted a survey to get views of citizens of India on how the lockdown should be lifted post April 15th. The survey received over 26,000 responses from people residing in 280 districts of the country.

What India wants on lockdown: 79% citizens in favour of stringent restrictions to contain the spread of COVID-19

Citizens were asked how should the Government of India go about removing the lockdown restrictions from April 15th. 31% respondents said that the lockdown should be extended pan India till April 30th and 6% said that lockdown should be extended till May 15th. 15% said Government should only unlock districts with no cases and 27% said Government should unlock all districts with no cases and any districts with no active cases after March 31st. 10% want govt to unlock all districts which have less than 20 cases while 4% want districts with less than 50 cases to be unlocked. Just 5% said that all districts regardless of number of cases should be unlocked from April 15th. 2% did not have an opinion.

Further analysis of the data shows that 79% citizens are in favour of stringent restrictions even after April 14th to contain further spread of the virus.

The second question asked if the Government was to remove lockdown restrictions in certain districts from April 15th, how should public transportation systems like air, rail, inter-city bus function. 55% said all inter district transportation systems must be kept shut while 21% said only inter district transportation systems between unlocked districts must be opened. 22% said all inter district transportation systems must be opened up with travel restrictions imposed in locked down districts. States like Uttar Pradesh and Delhi have already identified and sealed certain hotspots in their state till April 13th to prevent further spread of Coronavirus.

Since most of the metros have cases of Coronavirus, starting inter district transportation just amongst unlocked districts could be challenging as the metros are the ones that are also the primary hubs of transportation.

55% citizens in favour of keeping all inter district public transportation (air, rail and bus) shut even after April 15th

The result of the survey clearly indicates that majority citizens are in favour of stringent restrictions after April 14th. Even though many are facing loss of income and problems due to the lockdown, they do seem to believe that this is the only way to keep the infection in check. Cases of Coronavirus have grown exponentially in the last 2 weeks and experts believe that an extension of the lockdown is required to bring the situation under control. Some other countries who have been able to control the COVID-19 spread have shown that a severe lockdown is the only chance countries have to contain the spreading of this virus.

LocalCircles will be sharing this report with the senior most stakeholders within the Central Government and the State Governments so the above inputs are considered before the final decision on lockdown extension is made.