Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will launch a token system in 148 small and mega vaccination centres in the city from Monday to deal with the long lines. Firhad Hakim, Transport Minister and Chairman of Board of Administrators of KMC, informed about this new plan and claimed that people will no longer have to stand in line for hours outside vaccination centres.
“We see crowds at various centers to get vaccinated. People line up since night. In such a situation, we have decided that tokens will be given at the vaccination centers between four and six in the afternoon,” Hakim told the media on Friday.
The token system will currently be applicable only for the 18-44 age categories because people above 45 years of age, Hakim claimed, are part of relatively less crowded groups.
The tokens will be distributed between 4 pm and 6 pm every day from July 26 in Kolkata. The Aadhaar card copies of people will be stamped to ensure no malpractice in the token system. People who will receive the tokens on Monday will be vaccinated the next day and so forth.
However, even as the KMC is coming up with the new system to inoculate people, the city municipality still faces the vaccine shortage hurdle. Kolkata is already struggling with zero stocks of Covaxin and people who have their second shot pending are returning from the centres without getting jabs. On Friday, all centres in Kolkata which were administering Covaxin temporarily stopped inoculation due to the supply issues.
The KMC sources said the state government had sought 63 lakh doses of Covaxin and Covishield from the Central government in July, but has received only 23 lakh shots so far. Hakim blamed the Centre for the erratic supply, saying the matter is completely out of state government’s control.
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