Maharashtra colleges and universities to reopen with 50% capacity from 15 February

Maharashtra Higher and Technical Education Minister Uday Samant announced that universities and colleges will reopen in Maharashtra from 15 February onwards.According to a report by India Today, the classes will be held on a rotational basis and 50 percent attendance has to be maintained. The report added that Samant had earlier said that the government would soon announce its decision regarding the reopening of colleges in the state in a day or two.The report added that Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was expected to sign off on the date for colleges reopening after the discussion conducted on 1 February with the Vice Chancellors. The government will soon issue a list of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to all colleges and universities in the state for reopening.Colleges in Maharashtra have been closed for 10 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Maharashtra government has also allowed all cities to reopen schools for students of classes 5 to 12, except for Mumbai.According to a report in Hindustan Times, Samant said that the government has decided to relax the 75 percent compulsory attendance due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation in the state. The report added that earlier in January, vice-chancellors of all public universities in Maharashtra demanded resumption of actual classroom teaching in colleges.The vice-chancellors of the universities had demanded the restarting of normal classes in a meeting with Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari.Koshyari called the government's stand on reopening of colleges ironical and said if schools can reopen for children studying in classes V-VIII, universities and colleges too should resume classroom teaching.