Srinagar, Feb 6: Amid a drop in the daily COVID cases, the J&K government on Sunday lifted weekend restrictions and allowed private tuition centres to reopen to half the attendance subject to vaccination of students and staff.
According to an order issued to this effect by Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta in his capacity as Chairman State Executive Committee headed by, daily night curfew from 10 pm to 6 am shall continue across across the UT while weekend lockdown has been done away with, news agency GNS reported.
While the government directed schools, colleges, polytechnics, ITIs to continue to adopt online medium of teaching, it allowed coaching centres for civil services/engineering/NEET exams to adopt offline medium of teaching at 50% of their capacity subject to condition that both faculty members as well as students are fully vaccinated and the head of the centre ensures due precautions such as CAB and adherence to SOPs.
Government department(s)/office(s) have been asked to minimise conducting in-person meetings or interactions etc. “All Administrative Secretaries/ Head of the Department(s)/ Institution^) shall ensure optimal use of virtual mode for conducting official meetings.
The District Magistrates, who are also the chairpersons of the respective District Disaster Management Authorities have been asked to implement Covid Appropriate Behaviour (CAB) while the Health and Medical Education, Jammu and Kashmir shall sensitise people about the variants of Clconcern/variants of interest of Covid-19 including the new Variant B.1.1.529 Or Omicron.
The State Executive Committee also reiterated that all the offices should regulate the attendance of its employees in such a manner so as to ensure that appropriate Social Distancing Norms are maintained.
Pregnant women employees have been exempted from physical attendance and they shall be allowed to work from home even as employees with disabilities shall also be given option to work from home.
The maximum number of people permitted to attend any indoor gathering shall be strictly restricted to 25.
Banquet Halls in all the Districts of J&K are permitted to allow gathering up to 25% of the authorised capacity (with verifiable RT-PCR or Rapid Antigen Test for Covid-19 not older than 72 hours), in open spaces only, it said.
Cinema halls, theatres, multiplexes, restaurants, clubs, gymnasiums and swimming pools are permitted to function at 25% of the authorised capacity with due precautions such as CAB and adherence to SOPs.