The city civic body, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), has urged the state government to impose fresh restrictions amid rise in Covid-19 cases in the city. The BBMP in its proposal has recommended restricting capacity in theatres by 50 per cent, decreasing the limit for guests at weddings and shutdown of common areas of residential buildings.

“We don’t know how many cases have come from cinema halls. But it’s a closed environment with a hundred per cent capacity. In apartment common areas – be it party halls, gyms or swimming pools, people are interacting with each other and we are seeing many cases coming up. So we are proposing to shut these too,” said BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad.

Prasad said gym in BBMP parks should also be closed as these are commonly used and could lead to transmissions. The proposal came in wake of rising Covid-19 cases in Karnataka of which a majority of cases are being reported from Bengaluru Urban.

State Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar said that a decision will be taken after discussion with Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa. “We will take a look at it, discuss it with the Chief Minister and then arrive at a decision,” he said.

Yediyurappa in a tweet denied the proposal in a tweet and said: “No proposal before us on restricting theatre capacity to 50 per cent. Theater owners and audience must follow all protocols to co-operate with the govt to contain the spread of covid-19”.

Karnataka reported 1,488 cases on Thursday of which 925 cases were reported from Bengaluru city. The remaining 30 districts reported between 1 to 64 cases except Haveri which had no new case except its three active cases.