As Covid-19 cases continue to rise in Maharashtra again, the Amravati district is set to be placed under a one-week lockdown from Monday evening, state cabinet minister Yashomati Thakur said on Sunday.

Only essential services will be allowed to function during the strict lockdown period for seven days, the government said issuing guidelines.

The notification of enforcing the lockdown came hours after Pune’s district administration decided to enforce certain curbs, including restriction on movement of people from 11 pm to 6 am for non-essential activities.

Schools, colleges and private coaching classes will remain closed till February 28, while hotels and restaurants will have to shut their establishments by 11 pm every day, Pune divisional commissioner Saurabh Rao told reporters.

The decision to bring back some restrictions was taken in a meeting chaired by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who is also the guardian minister of Pune.

The surge in Covid-19 cases continued in Maharashtra for the fifth consecutive day on Saturday, with 6281 new cases, the highest daily addition in 85 days, taking the state's caseload to 2093913.

Maharashtra's death toll now stands at 51753, with the case fatality rate at 2.47 per cent, well above the national figure of 1.42 per cent.

Earlier on Sunday, the Centre had advised Maharashtra and Kerala to increase the proportion of RT-PCR tests and regularly monitor mutant strains besides refocusing on strict surveillance and stringent containment in selected districts.

"More than 74 per cent of the active cases of the country are in Kerala and Maharashtra. Of late it is seen that there has been a spike in the daily cases in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh also. Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir too are witnessing a surge in daily new cases," the health ministry said.