(This story originally appeared in on Apr 15, 2020)

New Delhi: India has evolved the world’s largest smart lockdown model through consultation, constant calibration and co-operative federalism, government officials have said after guidelines of the relaxations to lockdown from April 20 were issued.“This plan was around 10 days in the making, which is why PM Modi spoke about stressing on importance of both Jaan and Jahaan on 11th April. The guidelines have ensured that agricultural activities, manufacturing, logistics, e-commerce etc can start with minimal impact on India’s fight against Corona,” government officials said.They added that It was decided to create a basic model which act as a ‘minimum enforcing guidelines’, which would give the states flexibility to add more things to the list but not remove. “It was decided that social distancing would be non-negotiable. There was much concern on rapid mass movement and it was decided to keep very active vigilance on all movement at multiple levels,” government officials said.Officials said the mammoth exercise started right after first lockdown was imposed and PM Modi himself did multiple interactions with various sections of the society, where he himself took notes. “He further got many important inputs from his interactions with CMs,” the officials said.11 empowered groups were created which started a massive consultation process. “These groups reached out to multiple stakeholders like industry, academia, health experts and farmer groups. PM Modi held long meetings with the empowered groups going into the nitty gritty of every point,” officials added.