Live screens, shifts in House Covid plan

nNEW DELHI: Giant screens, engineers from the National Informatics Centre (NIC) on call, provisions for possible latency — these are among the issues Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and their teams are wrestling with as they finalise plans to hold sittings of the Lok Sabha across both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers to meet the requirement of social distancing made necessary by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The plan is to stagger timings of the two Houses so that they never sit simultaneously, and hold sittings of each across both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The exact timings of each House have not been finalised yet. HT learns that the government is likely to call the session after August 15.

Also part of the plan are fibreglass or plexiglass sheets between seats, reduced workforce across the Parliament complex, working over weekends to ensure the Houses can sit for enough time, inputs from multiple ministries, teething technical troubles and countless queries—all part of an ongoing, mammoth exercise to hold Indian Parliament’s monsoon session in these uncertain times.

With 770 seats across the two Houses, India has the world’s fourth-largest Parliament by number of lawmakers after the UK, Italy and France. Holding a session is such a big affair that Naidu and Birla have already

STAGGERED SEATING PLAN

Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha sessions will be held in staggered timings so they never sit simultaneously

nFor each session, MPS for one House will be spread across the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha with live broadcast on both ends

nFibre-glass sheets between seats

Giant screens for live broadcast of proceedings for MPS seated

Engineers from the National Informatics Centre will be on call for troubleshooting

Jet-spray for disinfectants, hand sanitisers throughout Parliament complex Additional medical staff and ambulances Reduced workforce

Working weekends

nnnnnnnmet six times to strategise.

Both are familiar with every small detail of Parliament complex, but they undertook field visits to physically check how MPS could sit across different areas.

The ministries of home affairs, health, urban development, and civil aviation and CPWD were consulted in the last few weeks, a top functionary added, as aspects related to logistics, security, and health were worked out. 15-SEC GAP

Proceedings may get slower as the live broadcast in other House may get a 15-second delay SEATING ARRANGEMENT

The Lok Sabha MPS will sit in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers, the galleries of both houses, and the Central hall. Similarly, the Upper House MPS will be divided between the two Houses and the galleries.

The Lok Sabha has 529 members. The Rajya Sabha has 242.

The Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha chambers can accommodate 60 and 158 lawmakers