BENGALURU  SATURDAY  MARCH 20, 2021  `7.00  PAGES 20  LATE CITY EDITION FLYING MAY COST MORE AS GOVT LIFTS BASE FARE BAND ATF PRICE RISE IS THE REASON, SAYS PURI “There has been a continuous rise in price of ATF, so it has been decided to increase the lower fare band keeping the upper fare band unchanged,” Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted on Friday. DGCA had on May 21, 2020, announced seven bands of ticket pricing based on flight duration. The first band was for flights that don’t take more than 40 minutes The Centre has extended domestic fare bands brought in May 2020 till April-end, but decided to hike the lower fares by 5% ■ 100% SECOND HIKE IN OVER A MONTH ■ ■ The lower limit for the first band was `2,000, which will now change to 2,100 while the ceiling will remain at `6,000 This is the second time the government has raised fare limits for domestic airlines. The first hike was in February this year No. of flights airlines can fly remains 80% of their pre-Covid levels FLIGHT OPERATIONS WILL BE ALLOWED WHEN DAILY PASSENGER TRAFFIC CROSSES 3.5 LAKH CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOGGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ WARANGAL ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI MASK UP, FOLLOW COVID NORMS, OR BE READY FOR RESTRICTIONS Pandemic ate into household savings in a big way in Q2: RBI Centre seeks Delhi HC bar on WhatsApp’s privacy policy EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi THE Centre on Friday urged the Delhi High Court to restrain Facebook-owned WhatsApp from implementing its new privacy policy and terms of service that are to take effect from May 15. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology made the submission in its affidavit filed in response to a petition challenging WhatsApp’s new privacy policy . Under the new policy, users can WHATSAPP, either acINSTA OUTAGE cept it or Facebook-owned exit the WhatsApp and a p p, b u t Instagram suffered cannot opt a major outage on not to share Friday night for their data about 30 minutes. with other There was no Facebookofficial word on the owned or reasons for it | P12 third-party apps. A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh listed the matter for further hearing on April 20. The affidavit said India’s IT Rules “require a body corporate who collects, stores or otherwise deals with data to issue a privacy policy providing for certain safeguards, in addition to imposing various other obligations. The impugned privacy policy violates the 2011 Rules.” EXPRESS READ CD-gate: SIT grills Jarkiholi for 3 hours Bengaluru: A day after TV journalist Naresh Gowda released a video statement, the SIT on Friday questioned BJP leader Ramesh Jarkiholi for three hours in connection with the CD-gate. This is the second time that the former minister is appearing before the SIT for questioning | P5 Health Minister says tough measures may be necessary to control the sudden surge in cases 21 19  Flow of financial assets  Flow of financial liabilities  Financial savings E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ Bengaluru 10.4 9.8 2.55 2.72 1.3 0.80 Q1 FY20 Q2 FY20 Q3 FY20 Q4 FY20 0.78 7.7 8.1 11.4 9.8 10.6 15.1 15.8 (% of GDP) Q1 FY21 Q2 FY21 Source: RBI MAHA SEES HIGHEST DAILY SPIKE: P10 REIGN OF FEAR ENDS Forest personnel inspect the carcass of a large tiger, which was found near the Nagarahole Tiger Reserve on Friday morning. The big cat is believed to be the same elusive beast which killed three people and injured one in Kodagu district over the last few weeks | EXPRESS | REPORT: P7 DIPPING RECOVERY 97.78 97.72 97.64 97.53 97.46 RATE IN % MARCH 15 MARCH 16 MARCH 17 MARCH 18 MARCH 19 MARCH 19 MARCH 16 MARCH 17 MARCH 18 MARCH 19 MARCH 18 B’luru reported 1,037 new cases for the first time this year. MARCH 17 1,587 MARCH 16 1,135 1,275 MARCH 15 1,488 8,860 9,428 10,228 11,359 12,067 CORONA CURVE’S UP D A I LY A D D I T I O N S KARNATAKA may soon see night curfew or a partial lockdown kind of scenario if people do not strictly follow Covid-19 protocols and the number of cases continue to rise in the state. While bracing for a second Covid-19 wave, the State Government is closely monitoring the rising number of cases. For three days in a row, the state’s daily caseload has been in excess of 1,000, with Bengaluru Urban district contributing the highest number. Speaking to TNIE, Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar warned that the government may be forced to implement night curfew and felt that it would not be possible to control the pandemic without imposing curbs.”We have not yet taken any decision on night curfew, but we are not far from it. There is a fast-changing trend of Covid-19 cases in Bengaluru and some pockets of Karnataka,” he noted. “As Health Minister, I am concerned. Without any curbs, it will be impossible to control the situation. Citizens should have some civic responsibility and follow Covid-appropriate behaviour, or the government will have to take some steps and get them to follow the rules,” Sudhakar said. “Some activities will be curbed and we will decide on those soon. During the second wave, other countries too took certain measures,” he added. RISING ACTIVE CASES LIABILITIES SWELL, SAVINGS EBB 4 THE financial distress caused by pay cuts and job losses during the pandemic may have forced Indian households to dip into their savings and borrow more to meet expenses. According to RBI data released on Friday, households’ financial savings rate dropped to 10.4% of the GDP in the July-September 2020 quarter compared with 21% in the preceding quarter, the central bank’s preliminary estimates on household savings. While the drop appears drastic on a sequential basis, a savings rate at 10.4% is still higher than 9.8% recorded in the year-ago period. The report said Indian households appeared to be slowly going back to their pre-Covid spending habits as consumption switched from an ‘essentials only’ pattern to discretionary spending with the gradual reopening of the economy . While the report notes the change is driven by an increase in household bor- rowings from banks and non-banking financial companies, experts say the drastic drop in income may have accentuated the process. It gives more credence to economists’ prediction that households are still maintaining consumption despite job losses and low income levels. Rising food prices in the midst of widespread economic pain could also force households to dip into their savings. A c c o rd i n g t o R B I , household financial savings have moderated despite an increase in savings in the form of deposits as borrowings from banks and NBFCs have picked up. On the assets side, there was a notable fall in household savings in the form of currency — to 0.4% of GDP in Q2 from 5.3% in Q1. Similarly household in, vestment in MF products declined to 0.3% from 1.7%, while savings in the form of insurance products moderated to 3% from 3.2% in Q1. Meanwhile, a Pew Research report said the Indian middle class has shrunk to 6.6 crore from 9.9 crore. P13 1.81 S E S A S E N @ New Delhi No curbs on cinema halls: CM Without any curbs, it will be impossible to control the situation. Citizens should have some civic responsibility and follow Covidappropriate behaviour, or the government will have to take some steps and get them to follow the rules Dr K Sudhakar Health Minister EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Bengaluru CHIEF Minister B S Yediyurappa on Friday said there is no proposal before the government to impose any restrictions on cinema halls even as he tried to allay concerns of the film industry over the possibility of imposing curbs. This came after Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad said a proposal had been submitted to the government to restrict cinema hall occupancy to 50 per cent in view of the surge in cases. In a tweet, the CM said, “There is no proposal before the government to restrict seating to 50 per cent capacity in cinema halls. Audiences and theatre owners must abide by all the necessary precautions and cooperate with the government to contain the spread of the coronavirus.” CONTINUED ON: P3