Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday hailed the gains from the lockdown and told chief ministers not to worry about the economy, asserting that it was “strong”, multiples sources who participated in the meeting said.

Although no announcement has been made whether the nationwide lockdown will continue beyond May 3, the Prime Minister’s pitch suggested the Centre was keen on an extension, ignoring the credible reports of widespread distress caused by economic activity having screeched to a halt since March 25.

In his fourth videoconference with chief ministers on Covid-19, Modi’s focus appeared to be on maintaining his claim of having arrested the spread of the virus, waving away the cost to the economy and people’s livelihood.

“There is no need to worry on the economic front. The fundamentals of our economy are strong,” the Prime Minister was quoted as telling the chief ministers.

The government’s official release on the meeting, however, said: “Prime Minister said that we have to give importance to the economy as well as continue the fight against Covid-19.”

The release said: “Prime Minister underlined that the lockdown has yielded positive results as the country has managed to save thousands of lives in the past one-and-a-half months.”

Modi urged the states to mark zones according to the severity of the infection — red, orange and green — in order to draw up a plan to exit the lockdown. He said a decision would be taken after a careful scrutiny of the spread of the virus, and that the states’ effort should be to turn the red zones into orange and then green.

Most of the nine chief ministers who could speak at the meeting — mainly from the BJP or its allies — appeared in favour of continuing the lockdown.

Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik was learnt to have proposed a month’s extension.

Home minister Amit Shah said economic activity could not be halted forever but the lockdown had to be enforced strictly to save as many lives as possible.

It’s unlikely that air, rail or other forms of inter-state public transport will be allowed to resume after May 3.

However, a discussion was held on a proposal by some states to arrange to bring their migrant workers home. This was severely criticised by Bihar’s Nitish Kumar at the meeting, who also questioned how some states had been allowed to ferry students home from Kota in Rajasthan in violation of the home ministry’s order against inter-state movement.