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Mangaluru, Mar 22: As many as nine districts across Karnataka, including Dakshina Kannada, will be completely shutdown except for essential services until March 31.

The move comes in the wake of a spurt in coronavirus cases across the country, which have crossed well over 300. On Sunday March 22, two more deaths were reported, one each in Mumbai and Bihar.

Apart from Dakshina Kannada, lockdown has been ordered in Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Kalaburagi, Mysuru, Kodagu, Chikkaballapur, Dharwad and Belagavi districts.

Essential services like pharmacies, ambulance, groceries and milk will not be affected.

For the next one week, bus services will also be suspended, including inter-service buses between six districts.

Companies have been told to ask their employees to work from home.

All state governments have been issued orders allowing only essential services in about 75 districts across the country. It was decided at a meeting here on Sunday morning with chief secretaries of all states by the cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba and the principal secretary to the Prime Minister P K Misra.

"The state governments may expand the list depending on their assessment of the situation. It was noted that several state governments have already issued orders in this regard."

The chief secretaries said that there is overwhelming and spontaneous response to the call for ’Janata curfew’ given by the Prime Minister on Thursday.

As many as 13,049 people have lost their lives across the globe and the deadly virus has affected 3.7 lakh people.

The number of coronavirus-affected people in India reached 324 on Sunday with reports of six deaths. In view of the need to contain the spread of COVID 19, it was agreed that there is an urgent need to extend the restrictions on the movement of non-essential passenger transport including inter-state transport buses till March 31, 2020, a Cabinet note said.

Besides, some important decisions were taken in the meeting that includes suspension of all train services till March 31, including suburban rail services. However, goods trains are exempted.

Inter state passenger transport will also be suspended till March 31.