District Collector Sunil Chouhan announced the cancellation of the lockdown on Tuesday. The decision to impose a lockdown in Aurangabad was reportedly taken back due to public resentment.
A complete lockdown was supposed to come into effect in Aurangabad on March 31 and remain in place until April 8. Only essential services would functions would have been allowed during this period. The Aurangabad district administration had decided to take this drastic measure to contain the spread of the coronavirus infection.
Aurangabad is one of the 10 districts identified by the Union Health Ministry as having the highest number of Covid-19 cases in India.
The state of Maharashtra has been seeing a rapid surge in cases over the past few days. The state reported 27,918 fresh cases on Tuesday and has more than 3.4 lakh active cases at the moment.
Earlier on Sunday, CM Uddhav Thackeray asked officials to prepare standard operating for a complete lockdown in the whole state in case it is required in the next few days.