COVID-19: Karnataka's Vikas Soudha to be shut on Friday

All offices in the Vikas Soudha, one of the government's prime administrative buildings that forms a part of the secretariat, will remain closed on Friday to take up a sanitisation exercise after a staffer tested positive for COVID-19.

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, the city's civic body responsible for COVID-19 containment, has taken up a massive sanitisation exercise of the Vikas Soudha that started Thursday evening.

According to a circular issued by the Department of Personnel & Administrative Reforms (DPAR), all officers and staff working at Vikas Soudha "are exempted from reporting to duty" on June 19. "They are directed to work from home on that day," the circular said.

On June 16, an employee working in the Food & Civil Supplies Department on the ground floor of the Vikas Soudha was tested positive for COVID-19. This had sent officials into a tizzy over tracing the primary contacts of the patient in the busy building, leading to some offices being sealed off.

Vikas Soudha, which is situated right next to the towering Vidhana Soudha, is home to offices of several ministers and secretaries of more than ten departments.