Chennai, The Tamil Nadu government here on Saturday warned people, organisations, political parties and others of legal action for violating the lockdown if they donated essentials, cooked food and other items to the needy directly.

Citing distribution of essential items and cooked food by some non-governmental organisations (NGOs), political parties, politicians and others, the state government said in a statement, such an act would help spread coronavirus and was in violation of the prohibitory orders.

It requested people, NGOs and others to hand over the items that they wanted to donate to the designated government bodies which would distribute them among the needy maintaining the necessary social distance.

The district administration and the police had been instructed to take legal action over violation of the advice.