Maharashtra Urban Development Minister Eknath Shinde has suggested a plan to decongest commercial activities in Mumbai and Pune Metropolitan Regions (MMR and PMR) where the lockdown has shut businesses, rendering a workforce of several lakh jobless. These two metropolitan regions share 52% of the state's GPD and the shutdown here will impact the state economics adversely, he said, demanding that investments in future be made in the 24 districts which the Balasaheb Thackeray Mumbai–Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway would connect with the state capital.

In a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta recently, Shinde said that since the MMR and PMR's service sectors contributed 52% to the state's GDP, the economy would really start rolling and lakhs of jobs will be restored only after these regions, which are COVID-19 red zones, start operating post-lockdown. "We may have allowed business in other areas to restart, but that won't suffice. We should learn from the Coronavirus experience and prevent a similar situation in future. We should appoint a task force of ministers and experts to form a policy of decentralising development activities," he said.