(This is an update to an earlier story which said that information technology (IT) companies in Karnataka will only be allowed to have 33 percent of their workforce working from offices starting Monday (April 20).)

Karnataka withdrew certain relaxations it had announced earlier on Saturday for opening up post April 20. It has now said that all employees need to continue to work from home except for essential services.

It specified that this also applies to the information technology (IT) services and biotech companies in the state.

Below is the story we had published a short while back, and which no longer holds

Information technology (IT) companies in Karnataka will only be allowed to have 33 percent of their workforce working from offices starting Monday (April 20)

However, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) circular earlier this week allowed software companies to operate at 50 percent strength. A similar capacity cap of 33 percent workforce will be in place for government departments also.

A meeting of senior ministers was held on Saturday to review COVID-19 situation in the state and further steps to be taken after April 20.

The deputy chief minister CN Ashwath Narayan had on Friday held a meeting with leaders of the IT and biotech industry to discuss scaling up operations and offered Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation buses to transport employees to offices from Monday onwards.

“Employees of IT, biotech and other business activities should come to offices in hired buses. IT, biotech employees should be encouraged to work from home. At the maximum, we will allow 1/3rd to attend their offices,” the government said in a statement.

The state government said the construction activities will be allowed but workers should be allowed to stay at the construction sites. The government will also open up movement of two-wheelers and goods vehicles, but cars will be allowed on the roads only with passes.

The state has also made wearing of masks mandatory, similar to other states such as Delhi and Maharashtra.

"We discussed about identifying containment zones and the activities to be permitted in non-containment zones. We decided to appoint incident commander to each containment zone assisted by police and health officials. They will be responsible for containing crowd movement and providing basic amenities in these areas. Incident commander will have magisterial power" the state said.

First Published:Apr 18, 2020 7:03 PM IST