DEHRADUN: With speaker of Uttarakhand legislative assembly Prem Chand Aggarwal testing positive for Covid-19 on Sunday, the upcoming session of the state legislative assembly has been restricted to one day instead of three, as per officials.
"Due to the Covid-19 crisis that we are facing, there will be no question hour and Raghunath Singh Chauhan, deputy-speaker will preside over the session," said Madan Kaushik, state cabinet minister and spokesperson for the state government.
Meanwhile, all MLAs will have to undergo COVID-19 test before they attend the upcoming session on September 23.
Till now 15 MLAs have been found positive including recent case of leader of opposition Indira Hridayesh. Members above 65-years have already been advised to attend the session through virtual mode.
Officials from the assembly secretariat said trials are being conducted to test feasibility of virtual session of the assembly.
Earlier, voices on 3-day session of Uttarakhand legislative assembly scheduled to start from September 23 have started to emerge calling the session 'too short'.
The data accessed by The New Indian Express from Uttarakhand legislative secretariat revealed that the state legislative assembly failed to conduct even 50 per cent of the assembly sitting required to work towards welfare of the state.
On an average between duration of year 2001-2019 only about 16 sittings were recorded every year.
According to 'Legislative Rules and Procedures 2005', Uttarakhand state assembly should function atleast for 60 sittings which would generally translate into 60-days. However, the said rule in not binding.
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