nagpur in his first interaction through video conferencing with private school principals from city nagpur municipal commissioner tukaram mundhe strongly supported online classes saying they were need of the hourspeaking to almost 850 participants mundhe also clarified nmc was indeed the competent authority for schools under right to education act rte guidelines the civic chief said schools had a right to recover fee which was decided by the management committee as long as it was being done in instalmentsonline education is a necessity because education cannot be stopped we cannot say when exactly schools will reopen hence the online teaching initiative has to continue said mundhe he expressed concern for those who do not have access to technology for the samefindings of a recent survey suggests that in nagpur around 22 students of std iv have zero access to technology needed for online education said mundhe the same survey mentioned that 32 students std viviii and 22 std xix faced the same problem whereas the numbers for nmc school students was higherwe have to think about these students extraordinary times require extraordinary measures so it could be congregating students locality wise and providing education at some common place thereby following health guidelines or taking help from ngos to go to students homes and teach said mundhe while broadly discussing outofthebox solutions he reiterated there were no readymade answers for these questions but he expected all stakeholders will actively work towards a solution mundhe even talked about making 900 wifi hotspots in city available for use by students for online education he urged schools to develop their own learning platforms i know there are many in the market like google classrooms etc its good that you all are using something but try to develop your own platform said mundhewhen a participant pointed out that many groups were calling online education a farce mundhe said tell them its necessary and if they have a problem ask them to speak with our office it is to be noted that state government itself has issued guidelines promoting online educationreplying to a query from a cbse schools principal about the fee controversy mundhe said maharashtra government never announced a fee waiver schools must not ask for entire fee in one go but collect in staggered manner fee recovery is important for functioning of schools and they have a right to collect whatever was decided by the school management committee said mundhetoi had reported earlier about nmc asserting its right over schools in city which was questioned by some mundhe said nmc is the competent authority as per rte guidelines issued in 2013 and 2014 why it was never implemented in nagpur is now an irrelevant question some issues like grantinaid etc will obviously be handled by state education department while for others schools can get in touch with my education officerwhat mundhe said book distribution on campus to be allowed with certain restrictions over 900 wifi hotspots in city will explore options for use by