Srinagar: The University of Kashmir on Thursday ordered closure of its main campus till May 02 after over 25 COVID-19 cases were reported amongst the staffers prompting district administration Srinagar to declare it as a micro-containment zone.
The move coincides with the 84-hour COVID-19 lockdown announced in 11 J&K districts including Srinagar and effective from Thursday evening till Monday morning.
An order issued by the Registrar KU, Dr Nisar Ahmad Mir while directing for the closure of the campus, said the essential services staff of the varsity including the Health Centre, Sanitation Wing, Landscape Division, University Construction Division, Proctorial Wing will however continue to perform their duties with full strength.
“In view of surge in Covid-19 positive cases and declaration of University as a Micro Containment Zone and announcement of lockdown up to 7am of May 03 by District Disaster Management Authority Srinagar and other orders from J&K government, the main campus will remain closed till May 02,” the order reads.
While ordering the closure of the main campus, the KU administration has also chalked out the arrangements to make the administrative units of the main campus functional from May 03.
As per the Registrar’s order, all Deans, Directors, HoDs, Coordinators, Heads and in-charges of various administrative units and all officers including assistant registrar, assistant controller and above will attend their normal duties on all working days.
It has been further ordered that to ensure smooth working of their respective departments and administrative units, the controlling officers and heads will decide about in-person attendance of minimal subordinate staff on all working days based on feasibility and requirement.
“All officials shall remain reachable to their controlling officers and attend to duties as and when called for,” the order reads.
Varsity to go ahead with online teaching for PG end-semesters
The University of Kashmir has decided to start online teaching for all its Postgraduate end-semesters where students were likely to be promoted to such semesters irrespective of the status of their pending examination.
Announcing a slew of decisions to ensure that there is no loss of academic time of the students in view of the ongoing pandemic situation, the varsity said that colleges can start online classes for Under-Graduate 6th semester for students who were likely to be promoted to the said semester irrespective of status of their 5th Semester.
In a detailed order issued by Registrar Dr Nisar Ahmad Mir, the university said the online registration for the Electives (OE/GE) and other Departmental Courses of 4th Semester shall commence from 5th May, 2021 and notification to this effect shall be issued by the Office of Chief Coordinator, CBCS.
The order also states that teaching shall continue via online mode till further orders, even as all seminars/workshops shall also be exclusively be held on online platforms.
Pertinently, the university has already postponed all its offline examinations until May 15, 2021 while ordering closure of all its hostels for the same period.
