Assam: Himanta Biswa Sarma requests Naam Ghars to restrict number of visitors to 15

Guwahati: Although the hymns of Kirtan Ghosha and the holy sounds of khol, bhortaal and nagara will soon be reverberating in Assam with the coming of the holy "bhaado" month, the celebrations promise to be a bit muted this year owing to the COVID-19 outbreak.

With the onset of the pious month of "Bhado" in the Assamese calendar, health and education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma today said that the number of persons visiting naam ghars should be limited to 15.

Sarma said that this model should be followed for the entire bhado month so as to prevent outbreaks of the contagious coronavirus.

The minister also urged the people who partake in the prayers to ensure that they wear masks and maintain social distancing.

"I urge the naam ghar organizers to ensure that when these naam-kirtans are held, the people maintain social distancing and wear masks. Not more than 10-15 persons should be present at the naam ghar at the same time and I feel the prayers should be done on a rotational basis", Sarma said.

It needs mention here that the word Naam Ghar comprises of two Assamese words "naam", meaning prayer and "ghar", meaning house.

The Assamese month of bhado is regarded as the most auspicious month and every naamghar in the State performs the Bhado Mohiya naam prasanga every day.

It needs mention here that the death toll due to the novel coronavirus in Assam climbed to 197 after eight more people succumbed to the dreaded virus in the past 24 hours.

The state also detected 2,792 new coronavirus positive patients on Monday. Since the first coronavirus case was detected, Assam has registered 79,667 cases.

In a tweet, Biswa Sarma said eight persons succumbed to coronavirus infections at different hospitals in the state in the past 24 hours.

The minister further said the state had tested 49,510 samples for the new virus on Monday and out of these, 2792 tested positive. The positivity rate is 5.63 per cent.

Out of the new cases, 458 cases were reported from Kamrup (Metro) district, 227 cases from Cachar district, 225 cases from Dibrugarh district, 195 cases detected in Kamrup (R) district.

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