Chief minister Mamata Banerjee relaxed some of the Covid restrictions imposed across the state on Thursday and held out the promise of more in the coming fortnight, but her announcement raised concerns whether Bengal was opening up too soon when a deadly summer had already claimed around 5,000 lives between April and June.

Retail shops, which were allowed to remain open between 12pm-3pm, will now get an extra hour and close at 4pm.

On an appeal from the IT sector, Mamata granted it permission for double shifts with 10 per cent staff. “You can run your offices from 8am till 12 noon and the next shift till 5pm,” she said at a meeting held at Nabanna, the state administrative headquarters.

“To keep the chain broken, it is important that the restrictions on social interactions remain. We have just gone below the 50 per cent mark since the highest number of cases about a month ago. Third wave has already started in South Africa. Since our vaccination rate is extremely low, it is important that people stay indoor for a some more time,” said a critical care expert in a South Calcutta hospital.

The government has also decided to allow restaurants to stay open between 5pm to 8pm on the condition that all employees are vaccinated following an appeal from Suresh Poddar, the president of Hotels and Restaurants Association of Eastern India.

Poddar had shared the concerns of the restaurant industry’s plummeting income and threats to livelihood of those involved. When the chief minister told him about online operations, Poddar said, “Online sales amount to two to five per cent of our sales. That is not enough to run the business,” he said.

After June 16, the last day of the exisiting restrictions, the chief minister indicated that the state government might allow opening of shopping malls with limits on the number of staff and operational hours.

Between Monday and Wednesday, Bengal has seen a steady decline in the number of new cases which fell to below 10,000 for the first time since April after the restrictions were imposed. On Monday, the number of new cases was 11,514 which fell to 9,424 and 8,923 on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

While the Covid figures are encouraging for the state government, the same cannot be said about its finances. The chief minister was heard telling representatives of various industries and chambers of commerce to donate to the chief minister's relief fund, which would be utilised for procuring vaccines.

“You give funds to the chief minister’s relief fund, we will get the vaccines,” said Mamata. Later, during the meeting, she told business representatives that if they could get the vaccines, then the state government would make arrangements for administering the doses.

During the Assembly elections, Mamata had promised free vaccines for everyone above 18 in Bengal though the programme was later deferred. Bengal’s population is around 10 crore and Mamata admitted on Thursday that so far, the government had managed to arrange for 1.4 crore vaccine doses.

Bengal has effectively been under a lockdown since April 30 when shopping malls, restaurants, liquor shops and places of public gatherings were shut. A complete shutdown of the transport sector was announced on May 15 and that still continues.

The brakes on the transport sector plugged one of the major sources of income for the state government _ taxes on fuel.

Fuel sales dipped to the lowest in a year’s time last month, with average sales falling by around fifth of the previous month as state after state went on imposing restrictions on vehicular movement. Bengal too is no different.

Excise and fuel are the two available sources of revenue generation. Both have been hit since April, adding to the strains of a cash-strapped government. Liquor shops in the state have been allowed to open for three hours from Tuesday.

On the GST front, too, officials are worried that the gains made in April would not be replicated and that would have an impact on the state’s earnings. In April this year, the Centre had announced record high GST collections at Rs 1,41,384 crore. The corresponding figures for May are yet to be released.

In this scenario, while Mamata is pushing for opening up certain sectors after due precautions like vaccination, the availability of vaccines itself is under question. “We hope the situation will improve further since vehicular movement and public gatherings are still not allowed. Gradually businesses will have to be opened. We can’t stall them indefinitely,” said a government official.