Govt U-turn on e-commerce rules, bars non-essential items; easing of lockdown curbs in select sectors from Monday

E-commerce companies have been prohibited from selling non-essential items during the lockdown, as conditional relaxations in select sectors outside the coronavirus hotspot areas to kickstart the battered economy come into effect from Monday.

With states gearing up to revive limited business activity after the Centre announced easing some of the curbs on April 15, Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Sunday said more relief measures are bound to come if the country continues to manage the coronavirus crisis well, asserting, "you cannot (have) lockdown permanently".

"He(Modi) gave the call of lockdown at the right time and is now partially allowing economic activity while the lockdown continues. With such a (huge) population we have managed well, if this continues we will get more relief," Javadekar told PTI in an interview.

While the relaxations starting from April 20 are primarily aimed at boosting the rural economy, Javadekar, who is a member of the Group of Ministers(GoM) to ...