  The last leg of the year 2019 gave rise to a virus named COVID-19 (Corona
Virus Disease 2019). Since the beginning of this infection in India, the
government implemented several policies and restrictions to curtail its spread
among the population. As the time passed, these restrictions were relaxed and
people were advised to follow precautionary measures by themselves. These
timely decisions taken by the Indian government helped in decelerating the
spread of COVID-19 to a large extent. Despite these decisions, the pandemic
continues to spread and hence, there is an urgent need to plan and control the
spread of this disease. This is possible by finding the future predictions
about the spread. Scientists across the globe are working towards estimating
the future growth of COVID-19. This paper proposes a Modified SEIRD
(Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered-Deceased) model for projecting COVID-19
infections in India and its five states having the highest number of total
cases. In this model, exposed compartment contains individuals which may be
asymptomatic but infectious. Deep Learning based Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)
model has also been used in this paper to perform short-term projections. The
projections obtained from the proposed Modified SEIRD model have also been
compared with the projections made by LSTM for next 30 days. The
epidemiological data up to 15th August 2020 has been used for carrying out
predictions in this paper. These predictions will help in arranging adequate
medical infrastructure and providing proper preventive measures to handle the
current pandemic. The effect of different lockdowns imposed by the Indian
government has also been used in modelling and analysis in the proposed
Modified SEIRD model. The results presented in this paper will act as a beacon
for future policy-making to control the COVID-19 spread in India.
