Shimla, May 5 (IANS): To break the coronavirus chain, the Himachal Pradesh government on Wednesday decided to impose curfew in the state till May 16 from Thursday midnight.

All government and private offices and establishments will remain closed. However, essential services like health, electricity, telecommunication, water supply, sanitation, etc., would be open.

These decisions, among others, were taken by the Cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur here.

Educational institutions will be closed till May 31. However, government and private transport would ply with 50 per cent of occupancy and inter-state transport would continue. Industrial establishments would work as per the guidelines issued by the state government.

Keeping in view the sharp surge of cases, it was decided that the annual examination of Class 10 of the Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education would be cancelled.

All students would be promoted to Class 11 by the school board as per the norms suggested by the CBSE for its students for the Class 10.

It was also decided that Class 12 examination of the the school board and annual examination of colleges would also be suspended till further orders.

The Cabinet gave approval to upgrade the regional hospital in Una town as 300-bed regional hospital along with creation of 76 posts of different categories to ensure better healthcare facilities.