The Karnataka government on Saturday eased Covid curbs across the state, the night curfew in the state will be lifted with effect from January 31.
All schools in Bengaluru are allowed to start offline classes from Monday with strict adherence to Covid-appropriate behaviour.
Schools for classes 1 to 9 in Bengaluru Urban district can commence from Monday. Even degree colleges will open in Bengaluru, Primary & Secondary Education Minister B C Nagesh said.
Cinema halls, however, will have to maintain the 50% occupancy guideline. Karnataka minister BC Nagesh said the departments concerned will come up with SOPs to be followed once the reopening starts.
Swimming pools, gyms, sports complexes will also have to operate with 50% capacity. Government offices can work with 100% attendance of the staff. Temples will also allow prayers with 50% capacity. Protest, sit-ins, religious congregations, political gatherings will not be allowed.
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The government continued the rule of carrying mandatory negative RT-PCR reports for the people who come into the state from neighbouring states of Goa, Kerala and Maharashtra. It also continued prohibition on religious fares, protests, and rallies in the state.
Karnataka, one of the worst affected COVID-19 states in India, on Friday reported 31,198 fresh cases that pushed its caseload to 37,23,694. Meanwhile, 50 new deaths during the same period took the death toll to 38,804, the state health department said.
Fresh infections saw a dip by about 7,000 cases compared to Thursday when the number was 38,083, the department said in its bulletin. It added that 71,092 people were discharged, taking the total number of recoveries to 33,96,093.
As the third wave of the pandemic has now shifted to the southern states, Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday conducted a high-level meeting with the health ministers of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.
Given the situation, the government has decided to go for more reopening, a week after it became the first state to ease the curbs as it withdrew the weekend curfew. Experts are of the opinion that schools should resume physical classes as students are bearing the brunt of online classes going on for almost two years now, intermittently.
(With inputs from ANI)