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The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), on the recommendatons of the Central ministries, has started conducting rapid antigen tests of the special forces, paramilitary personnel and other armed forces who will be participating in the celebrations of 72nd Republic Day.
"Different ministries have approached us for testing. No specific target has been given to us but, yes, the target is to complete testing before January 26. Ministries are sending their lists with contact numbers and we are sending messages to everyone to fix date and time for testing," CK Bakshi, CMO and coordination in-charge of Covid-19 testing in NDMC, told IANS. Bakshi said that several teams of healthcare workers and doctors have been formed and testing has been started at different locations. "Some centres are already functional at different locations and as the numbers of heads are increasing, we are deploying teams as per the requirement," he said. Replying to a query regarding the number of tests done so far, Bakshi said, "We are testing everyone who is approaching us for testing and submitting final reports to their respective authorities only." This year the Republic Day will witness muted celebration as limited number of people will be attending the event due to Covid-19 pandemic. The total number of the enclosures has also been reduced from 36 to 22 and there will no enclosure for school children also. The number of attendees will be 25,000 as against 1,50,000 until last year. Only 4,000 entries will be through tickets, the others would be invitation-based. "The motorcycle stunt event was cancelled as it involved the participants sitting closely together and supporting each other while staying in close proximity on moving motorcycles," said a senior official involved in the Republic Day arrangements. --IANS praveen/rt ( 306 Words) 2021-01-22-20:18:03 (IANS)
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