PUNE: While heavy rainfall shut schools in Mumbai, most schools in Pune held classes as usual. However, since it was the fourth Saturday of the month, many primary school children in the city already had their offs.

As heavy rainfall disrupted life in Mumbai, Pune and other parts of the state, State Education Minister Ashish Shelar informed schools via Twitter that they could declare holiday if required.

Following incessant showers and waterlogging, a majority of the schools and colleges in Mumbai remained closed on Saturday. In Pune, however, apart from the schools that had Saturday off, the others were open, albeit with a relatively lower attendance.

”Being a Saturday, we had only the morning shift of the school today. The number of students was lower than usual,” said Ahilyadevi High School for Girls Principal Darshana Korke.

Most of the city-based schools that did not have off had only half a day of classes, so the lower number of students did not affect the school much.

“Hardly 20 per cent of the students were missing from the school. Since the city area in Pune has not been disrupted due to rain like Mumbai, we decided not to give a holiday as it was safe outside,” said Modern High School (Shivajinagar) Principal Satish Gavali.

However, while the younger children in the city had holiday, the older ones, especially those who had their examinations going on, had to face an ordeal to go school due to traffic congestion and waterlogging.

“My son’s school, Abhinava Vidyalaya, had not given an off today, due to the ongoing examination. But going to school became a problem for him as the main road, especially Tilak Road and Karve Road had traffic congestion due to waterlogging. Moreover, it was almost impossible to find an autorickshaw on time. Uber, Ola services too were also down in our area. It would have been better if we would get a holiday for such days,” a city-based parent said.