Shimla, Aug. 13 -- The Himachal Pradesh legislative assembly's monsoon session will have 12 consecutive sittings - the longest in the 14th Assembly since the 9th Assembly in view of the recent large-scale monsoon disaster, speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania said on Tuesday.

Addressing the media after a high-level security review meeting, Pathania said the monsoon session beginning on August 18 and ending September 2, aims to allow deeper deliberations on balancing infrastructure development with ecological safety in the wake of widespread rain-induced destruction across the state.

The speaker said that such a long session has occurred only twice before in 1962 and 2009. "This will be the third time in Himachal's legislative history that the...