Mumbai, Apr 20 (IANS): Amid a clamour by all the Maharashtra ministers on Tuesday to impose a total lockdown, School Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad announced that the upcoming state SSC Board exams for 2021 have been cancelled.

"Earlier we had declared plans to conduct the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary & Higher Secondary Education Class 10 exams in June. However, given the current Covid-19 situation, the state cabinet has decided to cancel the state board SSC exams this year," Gaikwad said in a statement.

She added that her ministry will soon decide the process to be followed for promoting all the Class 10 students to Class 11 (Junior College) based on internal assessment and other criteria.

The development comes days after other boards also decided to scrap the SSC/Class 10 exams in view of the worsening pandemic scenario in the country.

Gaikwad's announcement came as all state cabinet ministers of the ruling Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress combine unanimously demanded that a complete lockdown should be imposed in the state in view of the galloping Covid-19 cases and deaths, Health Minister Rajesh Tope said here.

"We have all requested CM Uddhav Thackeray to impose a total lockdown from Wednesday 8 p.m. Now the final decision will be taken by the CM after further consultations," Tope told mediapersons after a cabinet meeting.

The ministers' demand came in the wake of the continuously worsening Covid-19 situation in the state and hours after the government announced a daily 20-hour curfew, with essential buying restricted to only 4 hours daily from Tuesday.

Besides the huge daily spike in cases and fatalities, the state is also grappling with shortage of essential medical supplies, hospital beds, Remdesivir injections, oxygen, ventilators and other requirements to treat the patients, especially the critical ones.