Jaipur, Nov 24 (IANS): As the number of COVID cases continue to soar in Rajasthan with school students turning carriers, new education minister BD Kalla took cognisance of the matter and collected feedback from education officials in a meeting on Wednesday.

The feedback collected in the meeting shall be shared with the health department in the presence of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and then a final decision shall be taken if the schools should continue running in hybrid mode or in offline mode, said officials.

Many private schools have stopped online classes after schools have been opened with 100 per cent capacity from November 15.

On Tuesday, 12 students from a private school tested positive.

Meanwhile Kalla said that all cases of COVID have been reported only in private schools and government schools are still protected. He said that the COVID guideline should be strictly followed. A decision on online and offline classes will be announced soon.

In this meeting, Jaipur CMHO Narottam Sharma also presented his report and said that cases have been reported in schools in the capital. They have been detected by following testing protocols in time. He denied that it was a wave but said that this is negligence of COVID protocol.

Kalla attacked the central government and said that the children should have been vaccinated first. "It's sad that even today, there is no update on children vaccination due to which kids are being infected."