There have been 130 red zones which will impose more poignant restrictions after May 3. In the meantime, minimal easing will occur in orange zones, and full relaxing in green zones.

The Union Ministry of Health has divided 733 districts throughout India into red, orange and green zones, designating all metro cities (Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad) under the ‘no activity’ zone right after the lockdown ended on May 3.

The ministry also said a red zone will switch into a green zone when there are no cases reported if there is no confirmed case in a district in the last 21 days, as it revises a list of 733 zones that includes 130 red zones, 284 orange zones and 319 green zones.

Previously the regions were known as hot spots-red zones, orange zones and green zones mainly based on just the recorded average cases and doubling rate.

Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra had the highest count of red zones at 19 and 14 respectively, accompanied by Tamil Nadu at 12 but most of the 11 districts of Delhi have been classified as ‘no operation’ areas.

Suburban Thane, Palghar and Mumbai have been declared as red zones among Mumbai’s suburbs. In this group other districts in Maharashtra are Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad,Nagpur, Akola, Yavatmal, Solapur, Satara, Dhule, Jalgaon and Raigad.

In Uttar Pradesh, Gautam Buddha Nagar, the NCR area of Delhi, has been classified as a red zone while Ghaziabad is in the orange group. Other regions include Lucknow, Agra, Kanpur Nagar, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Bulandshahr, Meerut, Rae Bareli, Firozabad, Bijnor, Muzaffarnagar, Amroha, Sant Kabir Nagar, Varanasi, Aligarh, Rampur, Mathura and Bareilly, the state capital.

The spokesperson for the home ministry has said that the lockdown guidelines should be strictly followed until May 3 to ensure such gains are still not squandered. Tweets from the home ministry tagged the office of the prime minister, the office of the home minister and the ministry of health with a hashtag “# StayHomeStaySafe.”