The Covid-19 vaccination drive remained hampered at the district and civic-run centers in Bhilai on Tuesday owing to shortage of vaccine, said an official from Bhilai Municipal Corporation (BMC). As per information, the civic authority has said that they had received fresh stock late on Monday which they distributed to vaccination centres on Tuesday, following which vaccination drive would resume of Wednesday. Vaccination drive has been suspended for several times in the past few weeks owing to shortage of vaccine doses. In the same context, the BMC Commissioner, Rituraj Raghuwanshi has convened a meeting of all zonal officers, health officer, sanitary secretariats, and other concerning officials and issued necessary instruction to them for accelerating testing and vaccination drive in city.

 

As per information, the district administration had earlier introduced a graded policy on unlocking, linking the level of restrictions in each civic bodies to the COVID-19 case positivity rate and the occupancy of oxygenated beds. The BMC authority has claimed that as they were facing shortage of vaccine, they will not be able to conduct the vaccination drive. Though, such situation has upset citizens as they claim that the move will just delay the entire process. In the last three weeks, the vaccination drive was suspended for four times in BMC limits. The BMC authority is seemed to be struggling to meet its target of vaccinating 10000 people per day due to less number of vaccines supplied to it. Vaccination will be resumed once vaccine stocks become available.

 

The civic officials have also made appeal to the residents of Bhilai to cooperate with the BMC authority. At many vaccination centres in Bhilai, especially in the patripar area, people queued up since early morning to avail slots for vaccination which were being distributed in limited numbers. The shortage of vaccines has been causing concern among citizens as at several centres more people have been turning up than the number of vaccines available. In many cases, citizens said they were turned away from vaccination centres after waiting for over two to three hours. However, the civic authority in Bhilai is seemed to be barely able to chase the daily target as nearly 4500-5500 people are getting COVID jab on regular basis and that even if all vaccination centers stocked with vaccines.