After nine officials of the Kathmandu District Administration Office including three assistant chief district officers were infected with coronavirus, all three district administration offices have decided to halt their services other than essential ones for one week.

“We have decided to halt our services other than essential ones for a week,” said Kali Prasad Rijal, Chief District Officer of Kathmandu. “We had to take this decision after some of our officials tested positive for the coronavirus and as cases are increasing fast.”

The decision was prompted also because one of the three assistant chief district officers was rushed to hospital, sources at the district administration office Kathmandu said.

However, the Bhaktapur and Lalitpur district administration offices are yet to conduct PCR tests on its staff.

The services which are halted include issuing of new citizenship certificates, copies of citizenship, certificate of identity for children, recommendation for and distribution of passports, registration of arms, registration and renewal of organisations and registration of newspapers.

However, essential services including applications related to peace and security and works related to different cases and other essential recommendations will continue.

The three chief district officers have also decided to direct offices where crowds gather like municipalities, land revenue offices and transport offices to manage services developing weekly routines so as to avoid crowding and that the District Covid-19 Crisis Management Centre will take necessary decisions if they cannot control crowds.

Chief District Officer of Bhaktapur Prem Prasad Bhattarai said they have decided to control crowds at the government offices throughout Kathmandu Valley as the virus has been fast spreading.

“Things are getting serious so we were forced to take strong measures to control the virus,” said Lalit Basnet, assistant chief district officer of Lalitpur, who had attended the meetings of three chief district officers Sunday in the absence of Lalitpur’s Chief District Officer. “We are trying to control crowds for now.”

In the last 24 hours 3,032 new cases were detected in the country among which 1,498 are from the three districts of Kathmandu Valley. Of the 1,498 new cases of Kathmandu Valley 1,132 were from Kathmandu district alone.