By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu May 8: The budget session of the Federal Parliament is beginning from Friday. As summoned by President Bidya Devi Bhandari, meetings of both the House of Representatives and the National Assembly will begin at 4 pm tomorrow.
The Parliament Secretariat has completed all preparations for the budget session that is beginning amid the fear of COVID-19 pandemic.
On the eve of the budget session of the Federal Parliament, throat swab samples of 441 lawmakers, employees and security personnel deployed at the parliament were collected to ensure safety from COVID-19. Swab samples of 179 lawmakers of House of Representatives, 33 lawmakers of the National Assembly and 229 of employees and security personnel were collected today.
All the samples will be tested at the Shukraraj Tropical Hospital in Teku Kathmandu.
Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota and NA Chair Ganesh Prasad Timalsina inspected the halls of the bicameral parliament after a medical team disinfected them on Thursday.
According to Rojnath Pandey, secretary at the Parliament secretariat, the swab samples of those lawmakers, employees and others who failed to reach the parliament building on Thursday will be collected on Friday from 8 AM to 10 AM.
The government is in pressure of tabling its annual budget for the next fiscal year within limited time as the summoning of the session was delayed due to COVID-19 fear and lockdown.
The budget will be tabled on May 28. Prior to that, the policy and programme of the government will be presented on May 15.
The parliament Secretariat had published a tentative schedule of budget session for Friday afternoon, according to which the HR Speaker and NA Chair will read out the letter received from the President Bidya Devi Bhandari.