Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Tuesday said that to contain the recent surge in Covid19 cases in the state, especially in its six districts, the state government has decided to limit the number of persons allowed at social gatherings like marriages and political or religious functions.

While a maximum of 50 persons will be allowed at such events held indoors, 100 persons will be allowed at outdoor events. Khattar said that from 26 November, these restrictions will remain in place in six districts — adjoining the National Capital Region (NCR) — which are witnessing a surge in Covid19 cases. These districts include Gurugram, Rewari, Faridabad, Rohtak, Sonipat and Hisar.

However, in the remaining districts of Haryana, people’s gathering has been limited to 100 persons for indoor functions and 200 persons for the outdoor events.

This was informed during the video conference of chief ministers of eight worst Covidhit states on the coronavirus situation, which was presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The other seven states include Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Kerala, Gujarat and Delhi.

Khattar said that the situation of Covid-19 in Haryana remained “satisfactory” in the first and second waves. However, in the third wave of Covid-19, a spurt in number of cases has been witnessed in the past few days, especially in the districts adjoining the NCR.

He said that keeping in view the movement of people in the NCR, the state government has ramped up testing in NCR areas so that people found positive could be isolated to keep a check on the further spread of infection.

While referring to various steps being taken by the state government to effectively combat the Covid-19 situation, the CM said that testing in Haryana has reached 1.24 lakh per million which is much more than the national average of 80,000 per million.

Khattar said that 32,000 tests per day were currently being conducted in Haryana, which would be further increased in the coming days.

Apart from this, special emphasis is being given on the contact tracing of positive Covid cases. He said that at present, the number of positive cases in the state was 6.86 per cent and the fatalility rate was only one per cent. Efforts are being made to further reduce the fatality rate to below one per cent, he said.

The CM also said that the state government was fully prepared to deal with any eventuality in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis. An arrangement of 57,000 beds has been made in different hospitals of the state, which is sufficient keeping in view the number of cases, he added.