All Odisha Assembly staff asked to go on home quarantine, session shifted to Lok Seva Bhavan

Odisha Assembly Speaker S N Patro on Friday asked all the Vidhan Sabha employees to go on home quarantine after the state's third COVID-19 patient came in contact with one of the staffers.

He announced that the assembly, which suspended its proceedings on March 13 in the wake of coronavirus outbreak, will conduct the business of passing the Appropriation Bill for 2020-21 in a special sitting at the Lok Seva Bhavan, the state secretariat, on March 30.

"As the third COVID-19 patient came in contact with the staff of the assembly, all the officials need to put themselves on home-quarantine and the entire building will be disinfected to prevent the spread of the deadly virus," the speaker said.

"The House will resume at Lok Seva Bhawan. I have directed all the Members of Legislative Assembly to maintain a distance of two metres from each other while sitting," he added.

The speaker said that leaders of all the parties have been requested to send only 30 per cent of their members to the March 30 session.

He said the police and authorities concerned have been instructed to exempt MLAs from the lockdown norms during the session.

"The collectors and SPs of all the districts have been asked not to stop the MLAs coming to attend the session," he said.

Earlier in the day, the government's chief spokesman on COVID-19 Subroto Bagchi said the 60-year-old man, who is the third person in the state to test positive for the deadly disease, had visited the Odisha Assembly dispensary.