Coronavirus in Mumbai: Today's updates from your locked-down city

MUMBAI: Amid prevalent chaos and uncertainty over access to the essential services and commodities during the lockdown, we bring you the latest updates from Mumbai.
Update at 8.51pm: Private practitioners should treat patients apart from cold, cough and fever. These patients should be referred to government hospitals, says Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray.
Update at 8.48pm: All migrant labourers should stay wherever they are.they should not try to move to their respective states as all state has sealed the borders due to national lockdown. The Maharashtra government will take necessary steps to provide food for them, says CM Uddhav Thackeray.
Update at 8.38pm: Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray says that the salaries of the government employees will not cut but will be given in instalments to streamline the anticipated financial crisis.
Update at 6.47pm: A Mumbai Railway policeman, aged 52, who is posted at CST GRP police station has been tested Covid-19 positive. He has been admitted to Kasturba hospital yesterday. His close relatives wife, son and daughter have also been called at hospital for checks.
Update at 6pm: South Mumbai guardian minister Aslam Shaikh releases Rs 3.63 crore for purchase of masks, PPE, sanitisers for BMC and government hospitals
Update at 5.51pm: Mumbai Police distributing food grains to sex workers and poor ladies in Kamathipura Nagpada.

Update at 4.38pm: Rambo circus with 185 artists was shut down on 10th March and is surviving on the donations and food supply from various NGOs and political parties. The members of the circus have no money to send to their families. They have no facilities to survive at Airoli in Mumbai.

Update at 4.11pm: Maharashtra home miinister Anil Deshmukh visited migrant labourers at Byculla and offered them food.

Update at 2.33pm: Crime branch raided a godown in Sakinaka in Andheri and arrested a person for stocking sanitisers worth Rs 22 lakh
Update at 12.47am: Maharashtra deputy CM Ajit Pawar has announced that CM's and MLA'S salaries will be slashed by 60 per cent and A and B class officers will get 50 per cent salary while C class will get paid 75 per cent salary and D will get full salaries.
Update at 12.09am: Five more cases reported in the state, four from Mumbai and one from Pune; total cases in the state rise to 230.
Update at 11.21am: NRI police station and Sai Devasthan Sai Nagar, Ulwe Node have joined hands to distribute 2,000 food packets in the morning and evening (4000) to big labour camps, security guards and the needy besides 90 families who contacted them for goods
Update at 9.16am: Maharashtra reports five fresh coronavirus cases; one in Mumbai, two each in Pune and Buldhana. State's tally touches 225: Health department
Update at 7.56am: People flock to Kranti Singh Nanapatil Mandi in Dadar, to purchase fruits and vegetables

Update at 7.51am: Security tightened as police personnel check passes and identity cards of people amid the movement of vehicles during lockdown.

Vegetable, grocery vendors allowed to set up shop inside housing society
* In line with the cooperative departments’ directive to housing societies to disallow its members to step out unless it is an emergency, several societies have got their neighbourhood vegetable and grocery vendors to set up shop in their building premises.
* Country Park co-operative housing society, a cluster of 12 buildings in Borivli (E), allowed vendors to pitch their tents in the society to ensure a steady supply of fresh ‘bhaaji’ and milk for its over 500 residents.
Shelves at many grocery stores bare as stocks fail to arrive; veggie rates stable
* The state’s plan for grocery shops to remain open 24/7 seems a tall order as groceries in the city are failing to work even normal hours due to disruption in supply chains. On the other hand, vegetable supplies have stabilized and consequently prices too. The surfeit of 800 vegetable trucks that arrived in APMC Vashi on Saturday against the daily normal of 550 had a trickle down effect on prices in Mumbai. Rates remained stable at Rs 60-80 per kg in most parts of the city.
Losses, surplus milk leave sour taste in dairy farmers’ mouths
* The closure of mithai shops, hotels and restaurants, and streetcorner tea stalls has had a deleterious effect on procurement of milk from dairy farmers. Across the state, dairy farmers now stare at losses and surplus stock with most dairies having cut down on collection by 25-30%.
* Also, the rates that farmers are getting in many parts are as low as Rs 20/litre though the government has issued notices to dairies to not pay less than Rs 25. Farmers complain that their input cost has increased to Rs 30/litre, and in drought-prone areas, like Marathwada, it is as high as Rs 35 per litre due to unavailability of fodder.