COVID-19" Tamil Nadu govt suspends public transport till July 31

The Tamil Nadu government on Monday (July 13) announced that public transport services in the state would remain suspended until July 31 as part of precautionary measures to control the spread of COVID-19.

Public transport services were suspended in the state on March 24 when a nationwide lockdown was imposed. As part of the relaxations being provided to various industries, the government started operating limited buses between and within districts for transportation of labourers to the industries since June 1.

As the number of cases spiked in late June, the state government enforced strict lockdown in four districts, including Chennai, and suspended public transportation till July 15. On Monday, the state government said that the public transportation, both government and private, would remain suspended until July 31.

Even as there is no transportation facility, the state government has been giving relaxations to a number of industries, including the IT sector.

Meanwhile, the state government has also asked government school students to collect their textbooks for the next academic year from June 15.

According to the order, all students studying at government and government-aided schools were asked to collect their textbooks from their respective schools from June 15. Class XII students were asked to bring their laptops along with them to install required applications as they will have to attend classes online.

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According to the government, the school teachers should help the students in downloading video lessons through HiTech lab at the time of distributing the textbooks.

As the government-aided schools do not have the HiTech lab software, computer teachers of each such schools were asked to visit their nearby government school along with a pen-drive or laptop and get the video lessons downloaded.

“The downloaded lessons have to be then submitted to the computer lab at the government-aided schools, who will, in turn, share it with the students,” a teacher said.