Schools won’t start until post-Diwali, says Ajit Pawar in Pune

After Diwali, we will review Covid-19 and then a decision will be taken about starting schools, he says

Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar announced that schools won’t begin in the state until after Diwali.

He was talking at the inaugural programme of “Punyacha Nirdhar, Corona Haddapar’ under the ‘My Family My responsibility’ campaign started by the state government. (HT REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO)

“Some of the states tried to start schools but later they had to face its consequences. Learning lessons from those schools, we have decided we will not start school in Maharashtra until after Diwali. After Diwali, we will review Covid-19 and then a decision will be taken about starting schools,” Pawar said.

He was talking at the inaugural programme of “Punyacha Nirdhar, Corona Haddapar’ under the ‘My Family My responsibility’ campaign started by the state government. The programme was organised on Friday at the PMPML head office near Swargate.

Pawar further said, “We need to take the economy forward along with Covid, and there are no favourable conditions as of now to start schools. Navratri and Diwali festival are coming, earlier we celebrated Ganpati and other festivals in a very simple manner and my appeal to citizens would be to celebrate forthcoming festivals in a simple way. The recovery rate in Pune has come to nearby 90 and until we make Pune Covid free, we won’t stop.”

On this occasion, Pune city mayor Murlidhar Mohol, Pune MP Girish Bapat, Pune divisional commissioner Saurabh Rao, Pune district collector Rajendra Deshmukh, PMC commissioner Vikram Kumar, PCMC commissioner Dr Shravan Hardikar, PMPML chairman and managing director Rajendra Jagtap and several other political party leaders and senior government officials were present.