Delhi: GRAP comes into force today, schools partially reopen for X-XII

New Delhi: The Delhi government on Sunday allowed students of classes X to XII to visit schools from today (Monday) for work related to admissions and practical activities for the board exam, and also said that health checkup camps situated on school campuses can resume.

Through an order issued Sunday evening, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) also permitted the opening of weekly markets across the city from Monday with a rider that the vendors and visitors shall follow Covid-appropriate behaviour.

For now, the DDMA, however, specified that schools, coaching centres and colleges will remain closed for teaching purposes.

"Students of class X to XII in the city are permitted to visit their schools from August 9 (Monday) for admission-related work including counselling, guidance and practical activities for board exam.

"Health checkups and referral services situated in schools or conducted from there can resume. Children of all age may visit these centres accompanied by their parents or guardians," the DDMA order stated. It said the Directorate of Education shall issue appropriate guidelines with respect to these permitted activities to ensure that COVID-19 protocols are followed and children safety is ensured.

The government had last month said that auditoriums and assembly halls in schools and educational institutions can be used for training and meeting purposes with 50 per cent occupancy. And with the Special Parent-Teacher meetings last month revealing that most parents wanted schools to resume physical functioning, a committee has been set up to design the required guidelines for this process.

Schools in the Capital were closed in March last year ahead of a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of novel coronavirus. Schools were partially reopened for classes IX to XII in January this year but were again closed in April in view of the aggressive second wave.

Significantly, the DDMA also issued another order, announcing that the colour-coded Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) designed a few weeks ago will come into effect from today. The GRAP has four alert levels - Yellow, Amber, Orange and Red - in ascending order of the pace of Covid spread.

Each alert will be sounded through an order, based on which the specific restrictions for the alert will come into place. This means that the DDMA will no longer have to separately issue guidelines on every aspect of locking down or reopening.

"As soon as any parameter (out of three) reaches the specified level of alert, 'the order of alert' shall be issued and permitted/prohibited/restricted activities prescribed at such level shall become operational automatically," the DDMA order said.

Once GRAP is activated, the additional chief secretary (health) will issue daily morning and evening bulletin regarding the level of alert. Appropriate orders would be issued separately as and when the situation warrants for imposing restrictions in respect of inter-state travel, it added.

The DDMA has also directed all relevant authorities to ensure that information about the alerts are communicated to all key stakeholder groups of people.