The lockdown in Mumbai, Pune and some other cities in Maharashtra will be extended till May 31 amid a sharp increase in the number of coronavirus cases, state Industry Minister Subhash Desai told NDTV on Thursday night. Mumbai has reported 16,579 cases of the coronavirus so far, which is nearly 60% of Maharashtra’s tally of 27,524. Over 600 people have died of Covid-19 in the city.

“Looking at the rate of increase of virus cases, we have to extend the lockdown in Mumbai, Pune, Solapur, Aurangabad and Malegaon town in Nashik district till May 31,” Desai told the news network. “The state’s view will be conveyed to the Centre in writing.”

The need to extend the lockdown in Maharashtra was discussed at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday, according to News18.

Maharashtra has been the worst-hit state in India. On Tuesday, the state government had asked the Centre to deploy 20 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces to provide a breather to the overworked police force.

The Centre is yet to announce its decision on the lockdown, which is set to end on May 17. The chief ministers of all states had an online meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday to discuss the coronavirus situation in the country. Modi asked them to provide a blueprint of their strategies to exit the lockdown in a phased manner by May 15. The prime minister had also hinted that the next phase of the lockdown would be very different from the previous ones.

The number of coronavirus cases in India rose to 81,970 on Friday morning and toll stood at 2,649, according to data from the Union health ministry.

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