A week-long 'strict lockdown' begins across the country today (Thursday) to rein in the surging infections and death during the second wave of the Covid-19.
The country has been witnessing the record number of deaths and infections during the past one week and hospitals struggling hard to cope with the heavy rush of Covid patients.
High government officials have warned of taking stern actions against the violators of a set of restrictions to be in effect during the lockdown period.
The authorities, however, allowed apparel units and other mills and factories to continue operation during the period.
People who will come out of home without valid reasons during the 'lockdown' could face stringent punishment.
The law enforcement agencies and magistrates will remain vigilant to enforce the restrictions at the field level.
The Cabinet Division issued a circular on Wednesday with 21 directives, declaring the movement restriction throughout the country.
However, people having emergency needs like buying medicines and essential commodities, medical care, taking vaccine, etc. will be allowed to go out on condition of maintaining health safety guidelines properly.
Meanwhile, the mass exodus of homebound people from the capital continued on the day before the countrywide lockdown despite the suspension of all modes of public transports - road, river, rail, and domestic flights.
At a press conference on the day, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Shafiqul Islam said police would arrest the violators of restrictions imposed by the government.
He said: "If needed, police would not hesitate to arrest even 5,000 people disobeying the restrictions."
Only the staff of emergency services and the media houses would be allowed to move on roads for their professional activities but they would be required to carry identity cards, he added.
The circular issued by the Cabinet Division also said the armed forces would be deployed, if necessary, to strictly enforce the lockdown.
All government, semi-government and private offices, shopping malls, and shops will remain closed while motorised vehicles would not be allowed to ply the roads.
Public gatherings will also not be allowed during the lockdown. Community centres, amusement parks and tourist spots have been instructed to remain shut.
Emergency services like transportation of agro essentials like fertiliser, seeds, pesticides, agro machinery or tools, transportation of food grains, distribution of relief items, revenue collection activities, utility services, etc. are out of the purview of the restrictions.
The trucks, lorry, covered vans and goods-laden cargo vessels can move normally while offices located at the airports, seaports and land ports and industrial units including garment factories will operate as usual by maintaining health safety guidelines.
The kitchen markets and shops selling essential commodities could also operate from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm to meet people's regular demand.
Hotels, restaurants and food shops can operate from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm, but they can only offer takeaways as customers will not be allowed to sit inside.
In the meantime, all the exit points of the capital city including Babubazar, Gabtali, Abdullahpur and Signboard area witnessed people in their thousands leaving the Dhaka city for their village homes on Wednesday.
The homebound people had endured a lot of sufferings to reach their respective destinations as they had to pay extra money for transport purposes.
In another development, Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) decided to suspend all types of domestic flights from Thursday until July 07 in line with the government's instructions to curb the spread of Covid-19.
However, the international flights will continue as usual and all the outbound travellers will have to show tickets before entering the airport, according to a circular issued by the CAAB.
Besides, humanitarian, relief and cargo flights will also remain out of the restrictions.
The central bank has asked all the scheduled banks to provide services on a limited scale during the government -nnounced nationwide strict lockdown until July 07, officials said.
During the period, banking transaction period has been fixed from 10:00 am to 1:30 pm instead of the existing 10:00 am to 3:30 pm on each working day, according to a notification issued by the Bangladesh Bank (BB) on Wednesday.
Besides, the banks have been asked to run operations on a limited scale from July 05 by keeping their branches open from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm instead of until 5:00 pm, it added.
Under the notification, clients would be allowed to settle financial transactions until 1:30 pm instead of the existing 3:30 pm on each working day until July 07.
The banks, however, will be remained closed on the next four days due to bank holidays, weekends and lockdown.
There will be no transactions today (Thursday) due to bank holiday.
Banks will be remain closed on Friday and Saturday due to the weekly holidays.
As per the notification, the banks will remain closed on Sunday to curb the coronavirus infections.
"The central bank has taken the decision after imposing a week-long nationwide strict lockdown by the government until July 07 to curb the second wave of the Covid-19 infections," a BB official told the FE.
Under the latest notification, headquarters, main branches and authorised dealer (AD) branches of the banks will remain open during the strict lockdown until July 07 with limited human resources, he added.
Besides, state-owned banks have been asked to open one branch in district headquarters and another branch at upazila level. Other banks have been instructed to open one branch in district headquarters. They are also allowed to open maximum two branches outside district town, he mentioned.
Stock exchanges have reduced their trading hours by one and a half hours for the period of the countrywide strict lockdown.
As per the decision, trading at the bourses will continue from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm for the one week of lockdown.
"In line with the securities regulator's instruction, we have reduced the trading hour by keeping pace with the reduced banking hour," said Abdul Matin Patwary, managing director (in-charge) at the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE).
