NEW DELHI: A traders' body in Delhi on Tuesday demanded scrapping of the DDMA's graded response action plan (GRAP) for Covid management ahead of the panel's proposed meeting later this week to discuss further relaxations amid a significant improvement in the pandemic situation here.
The GRAP devised by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority came into force in August last year, stipulating measures to be taken by the government as per positivity rate and bed occupancy for locking and unlocking of various activities.
The Chamber of Trade and Industry (CTI), an association of traders in Delhi, has demanded that the DDMA should scrap the GRAP, saying unless it goes, "the sword of restrictions" will keep on hanging over their heads.
CTI Chairman Brijesh Goel said Covid cases and Omicron are decreasing in the national capital and a letter has been written to the DDMA to scrap GRAP.
Officials said a meeting of the DDMA, that is chaired by the Lt Governor, is expected to be held in coming days although a date is yet to be finalised.
The demands for further relaxations like lifting night curfew, permitting weekly markets in all municipal zones, and allowing visitors in religious temples, have been raised by several quarters, including the traders and political parties.
The DDMA, in its meeting on February 4, extended the imposition of night curfew from 11 PM, instead of 10 PM, to 5 AM.
Several restrictions like permitting only one weekly market in a municipal zone, no standing passengers allowed in buses and metro trains, 50 percent cap on seating capacity in restaurants, bars and cinemas and no activity except weddings in banquet halls are yet to be relaxed as the Covid situation improves in Delhi.
Delhi on Tuesday reported 756 fresh COVID-19 cases and five deaths, while the positivity rate stood at 1.52 per cent, according to data shared by the city health department.
With this, the national capital's case count increased to 18,52,662 and the death toll climbed to 26,081, the latest health bulletin stated.
The number of COVID-19 tests conducted a day ago stood at 49,792, it said.
Delhi had on Monday reported 586 cases with a positivity rate of 1.37 per cent, and four deaths.
The number of daily cases in Delhi has been on the decline after touching the record high of 28,867 on January 13.
The city had recorded a positivity rate of 30.6 per cent on January 14, the highest during the ongoing wave of the pandemic.
It took just 10 days for daily cases to drop below the 10,000-mark.
Delhi had on January 23 reported 9,197 Covid cases with a positivity rate of 13.32 per cent and 34 deaths.
Amid decline in daily cases of COVID-19 in Delhi, the number of patients under home isolation here has gradually fallen to 2,167 as on February 15, a steep drop of 82 per cent in the last 15 days, as per official data.
The number of home isolation cases on February 1 had stood at 12,312.
The number of containment zones, which were also slowly falling in this period, also registered a dip in its count to 14,686 on February 15 from 37,116 on February 1, according to official figures shared by the health department.
The surge in Covid cases in Delhi during the third wave of the pandemic, was largely due to the Omicron variant of the virus which is highly transmissible.
Families in a large number of neighbourhoods had tested positive, but medical experts have said that since the infection had happened at the same time, the recovery too has been quicker for the community as a whole, and there has been less chance of more spread of infection as people have been largely home isolated with a very little number of patients needing hospitalisation this time.
There are 15,351 beds for Covid patients in Delhi hospitals and 433 (2.82 per cent) of them were occupied.
A total of 433 Covid patients were in hospitals, the Tuesday health department bulletin stated.