Schools in Mumbai to reopen with rest of Maharashtra on Monday

Mumbai, Jan 20: Schools in Mumbai will reopen on Monday along with the rest of Maharashtra. The decision was taken in the wake of the COVID-19 cases seeing a slight dip over the past couple of days.

"From 24 (January) we will be reopening schools for classes 1-12th with COVID protocols; Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has agreed to our proposal, state education minister, Varsha Gaikwad told ANI.

Schools in Mumbai have been shut for more than 20 months for classes 1 to 7 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently the BMC Commissioner Iqbal Chahal had issued the order to reopen schools for Classes 1 to 7.

Earlier the decision to reopen schools on December 4 was postponed owing to the detection of Omicron cases in the state.

Earlier this month, the Maharashtra government had announced the closure of schools in the state till February 15 as the number of coronavirus cases started spiralling from December amid the emergence of the new Omicron variant.

"After COVID cases rose, the government decided not to continue with the school (offline) sessions. But after discussion with the experts, it has been decided to start the sessions where the number of cases is low based on the local COVID-19 situation," minister Varsha Gaikwad said.

"A proposal has been sent to the chief minister. It states that reopening of schools should be considered from Monday and all the power to do so should be given to the local authorities (municipal commissioners, district collectors, chief executive officers, education officers," the school education minister added.