Bengaluru, May 3 (IANS): With the lockdown to fight the Covid-19 pandemic getting extended by 2 weeks till May 17 from May 4, Karnataka urged the Centre to divide this tech city into 4 zones, spanning green, orange, yellow and red for easing its relaxation norms, state Revenue Minister R. Ashok said on Saturday.

"As the Centre has categorised Bengaluru Urban and Bengaluru Rural as one contiguous district and declared it as red zone, further extension of lockdown norms will be applicable, holding up economic activity in areas which had no Covid cases since the last 14-28 days," Ashok told reporters here.

With Bengaluru contributing a whopping 60 per cent of the state gross domestic product (SGDP) as India's tech city, prolonged lockdown since March 25 to contain the coronavirus spread has taken a toll on its economic activity across the sectors.

Though Bengaluru accounted for 145 of the 601 Covid positive cases across the southern state, with 71 discharged, 67 active and 6 dead till date, only 43 of its 198 civic wards were affected by the pandemic since March 11, with the remaining wards falling under orange, yellow and green zones in the absence of cases or recovery and non-occurrence of cases over the last 14-28 days.

"As the whole city of over 1 crore people has been made one unit, even one positive case makes it a red zone. The affected areas from where cases were reported should be declared as containment zones or hotspots while categorising other areas as green spots," said Ashok.