With the country battling an unrelenting heatwave, several states have announced early summer vacations in schools or changed timings. Haryana became the latest entry in this list after education minister Kanwar Pal said on Twitter on Monday the timings of all private and government schools in the northern state will be changed to 7am to 12pm from 8am to 2.30pm from May 4 onwards.
Some of the states have shifted to early morning classes while others have reduced the school hours from 7 to 4 hours and many have postponed the classes and some have even announced early summer holidays. Amid rise in mercury, the center has issued a warning for the states and has advised people to avoid getting out in the sun, especially between 12 noon and 3 pm. However, the Indian weather department, IMD has predicted that some states forecast heatwaves for the next three to four days while in other states from Tuesday there might be some relief.
Here take a look at the list of states where schools have early vacations, changed timings:
The IMD has said heatwave conditions will begin to abate from May 3 onwards, with south westerly winds from Bay of Bengal and western disturbance causing rainfall in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi, among others.
More than five states, including Haryana and Punjab, have either announced early summer vacations in schools or changed their timings in view of the sweltering heatwave.
What does the weather forecast say?
Heatwave conditions, however, are expected to abate from Tuesday, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted. According to the Met department’s latest bulletin, under the influence of south westerly winds from Bay of Bengal over east and northeast India, widespread rainfall is very likely over sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim and all other northeastern states over till May 4. Rainfall along with thunderstorms and gusty winds are expected over Jharkhand, Bihar, Gangetic West Bengal and Odisha till May 7.