BHUBANESWAR: Journalists will continue to be barred from attending the budget session of the Assembly beginning from March 25 though new Covid-19 cases have drastically come down in the State.
The decision was taken at the all-party meeting presided over by Speaker Surjya Narayan Patro here on Tuesday. Reporters are not allowed to enter the Assembly ever since the beginning of the pandemic though House sessions were held physically after the decline of the first and second waves.
They followed the proceedings from a room on the Assembly premises from live TV. This type of arrangement made sense in the earlier stages of the pandemic when the MLAs were assigned seats in the press and visitors' galleries. But all such restrictions have been lifted since the last two sessions.
Mediapersons are also barred from entering the State secretariat for the last two years. All regular passes of the journalists have been cancelled though the departments of the government are now functioning with 100 per cent attendance. The issue was raised in the all-party meeting by the leader of the Congress Legislature Party Narasingha Mishra. He told mediapersons after the meeting that the government did not accept the proposal citing the suggestions made by the Health department due to the Covid-19 situation.