New Delhi | Jagran News Desk: Amid the spiking number of coronavirus cases in the country, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday chaired a Group of Ministers’ (GoM) at his residence over the coronavirus outbreak in the country.

The meeting was attended by Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar Textiles Minister Smriti Irani, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Santosh Gangwar, Ramesh Pokhriyal, Ram Villas Paswan and Giriraj Singh, reported news agency ANI.

According to a report by ANI, the ministers discussed about the way forward once the nationwide lockdown is lifted on May 3.    

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"Interacted with the GoM on the COVID-19 situation. We discussed ways to mitigate the hardships faced by the people and the role ministries can play in providing relief to people. The guidelines to allow limited activities and the measures announced by RBI were also appreciated," Rajnath Singh tweeted after the meeting.

This is the fifth time that the Group of Ministers has met since a nationwide lockdown was imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in order to control the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country.

The central government, however, has relaxed lockdown guidelines to allow some industrial activities from April 20.

On Friday, the GoM had meet and reviewed the management strategy for coronavirus hotspots and clusters, and the availability of testing kits in the country.

The GoM, which is headed by Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, was informed by officials that 170 districts are being put in the 'red zone' (hotspots) category. These include 123 districts that have reported large outbreaks and 47 districts that have COVID-19 clusters.

There are 207 non-hotspot districts with clusters and 353 districts are in the 'green zone as they have no coronavirus cases, a health ministry statement said, adding that the GoM also reviewed the testing strategy.

"If no case is reported in the last 14 days then the red zone district will be placed under orange zone and further no case is reported in the next 14 days then that district will come under green zone," it said.

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The GoM was also apprised that as of now the COVID-19 death rate is around three per cent while the recovery rate is around 12 per cent which is comparatively better than most countries. This may be taken as a positive effect of the lockdown in the country along with the cluster management and containment strategy, the statement stated.

The novel coronavirus has affected over 14,000 and claimed the lives of 480 people in India so far.

(With PTI inputs)