All legislators, officers and staff of the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly Secretariat would have to undergo a mandatory Covid-19 test when the fifth session of the seventh assembly begins here on August 27 next.

The decision to conduct the compulsory tests was taken during a meeting chaired by State Assembly Speaker Pasang D Sona on Monday.

The meeting, which was attended by the officers from the health department and district administration, discussed plans and arrangements to be made for the three-day assembly session, while detailed Covid-19 SOPs and security-related arrangements were also discussed.

Stressing on the strict adherence to the SOPs, the Speaker said that the effort should not be only to detect the possible positive cases but also to stop its spread.

He urged the departments concerned to regularly sanitize the assembly secretariat during and after the session.

It was further informed that in order to test the MLAs and others, the health department would be setting up a Covid-19 testing kiosk on the assembly premises.

Among others, members of the Itanagar Municipal Council, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and officials from the Tomo Riba Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (THRIMS) were also present in the meeting.

Damien Lepcha is Northeast Now Correspondent in Arunachal Pradesh. He can be reached at: [email protected]