New Delhi, Feb. 1: The Delhi government today banned mobile phones in the 1,000 schools it runs and aids, more than a month after leading private schools here took similar action in the wake of the student sex scandal.

A formal notification of the ban, applicable to students and teachers, was likely to be issued in a day or two, officials said. The government plans to issue an advisory to all private schools, urging them to follow suit.

?We had been considering the ban on mobile phones since the MMS incident but wanted the legalities to be taken care of. We had received several complaints from parents, NGOs and social organisations,? said Delhi education minister Arvinder Singh Lovely.

The decision was taken at a meeting of top government and school officials that Lovely had called.

The scandal involved the circulation of explicit clips via mobile phones enabled with multimedia messaging service and their sale on an online auction site.

The CEO of the website, an IIT Kharagpur student and another student accused of filming the clip had been arrested.

Mobile phones and MMS are a trend more prevalent in private schools but the Delhi government took the step as it is wary of the fallout of any similar incident on middle-class parents, most of whom send their wards to government schools.

School principals would be responsible for the implementation of the ban.

The move was supported by the Government School Teachers? Association, which represents teachers of schools run or aided by the Delhi government.

?In our government schools, most of the students do not have mobile phones. It is only a few who bring them. But if the government has taken a decision, we support it,? said D.K. Tiwari, the association?s general secretary.

Lovely said another meeting with private school principals would be held next week to urge them to take a similar step.