Bihar government decides to shut all educational institutions till April 18

Keeping in view the strong second wave of the coronavirus, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has decided to shut all educational institutions till April 18. He has also said that retail commercial establishments will be open only till 7 p.m. for the rest of this month.

While interacting with reporters in Patna, the chief minister said that the second wave of coronavirus is stronger and is spreading quickly in rural and urban areas.

"We have imposed a partial lockdown and night curfew to stop transmission of corona in the state. We have been witnessing that the virus is infecting school children more this time. Hence, all educational institutes including schools, colleges and coaching centres will be shut till April 18. We will take a further decision about their opening after the assessment of the situation," Kumar said.

Earlier, the educational institutions were shut till April 11 and the state government has now extended this by a week.

"Apart from educational institutes, special guidelines have been issued for retail entities including that they have to operate till 7 p.m. every day for the rest of this month. Each shop has to follow the Covid guidelines including wearing masks and using sanitizers. They can allow only 25% customers against their actual capacity," Kumar said.

"We have also closed all private and government events apart from spiritual places like temples, mosques, churches, and Gurudwaras," he said.

"We have also directed all private and government offices to operate with one-third (33%) manpower of their overall capacity," he said.

"We have allowed only 50 persons to assemble for the cremation or burial of the deceased. For marriage events, the authorities will penalize organizers if more than 200 persons assemble at the venue," Kumar added.

"We have also directed authorities to ensure only 50% passengers in public transport and 50% in cinema halls and transporters or cinema hall owners have to follow all guidelines of Covid 19," Kumar said.

"Earlier on Thursday, we had organized an all party meeting to discuss the situation due to coronavirus in the state and informed Governor Phagu Chauhan," he added.