Mumbai mayor Kishori Pednekar said on Saturday a decision on reopening of schools in the country’s financial capital was yet to be taken as it was a question of the safety of children. She said several factors would have to be considered before coming to a conclusion on the matter.
“A final decision will be taken next week by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The state government has allowed reopening of schools, but it has also left it on the local authorities for execution of the decision,” the mayor added.
Pednekar’s statement came a day after the Uddhav Thackeray government said schools across the state would reopen from October 4.
A lot of experts have warned of a more severe impact on children if an impending third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic were to hit the country.
On Friday, Mumbai registered 446 new Covid-19 cases and six related deaths. Across the state, the figures were 3,286 new infections and 51 fatalities, taking the overall caseload to 65,37,843 and death toll to 1,38,776, respectively.
On Friday, school education minister Varsha Gaikwad said physical classes for standards 8th to 12th would resume everywhere in urban areas, while all schools in rural areas would allow students from 5th to 12th to attend offline classes.
So far, schools were open for in-person classes only in areas that reported relatively fewer cases of coronavirus.
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Gaikwad said no physical sessions would begin yet for children studying classes 1 and 7 in rural areas.
Also, there was no compulsion on students to attend the classes physically and consent of parents would be required if they wish to do the same.
The Maharashtra government has also announced reopening of all religious places from October 7. The chief minister’s office in a tweet said that all religious places of worship will reopen on the first day of Navratri.
Surjitt Sahani
