The Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking administration will be proposing the names of all the 34,000 employees as recipients of the Covid-19 vaccines in the second phase.
BEST emerged to become the lifeline of the city by ferrying the essential service workers amid the lockdown imposed to contain the spread of the pandemic. All the employees of both the transport and electricity department were deployed on the ground to ensure that there is no interruption in BEST services. As a result, the administration has now stated that all the employees of the undertaking will be the recipient of the virus.
Earlier this month, following a high profile meeting, additional municipal commissioner, Suresh Kakani had stated that BEST employees will be the recipient of the vaccine in the second phase. On Saturday, CM Uddhav Thackeray had also asserted that BEST workers will be the recipient of the vaccine.
"We have proposed the name of all the 34,000 employees in the organisation as each of them reported on duty during the pandemic regularly and have continued to do so," said a senior official of the transport undertaking.
Dr. Anil Kumar Singhal, BEST Chief Medical Officer (CMO) stated, officials of the BEST and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) are in talks regarding the vaccination drive. The BMC has asked BEST to send them a list of their employees to the civic body, following which the body will take a final call. After that, each BEST worker will be allotted a nearby vaccination centre depending on the depot or bus station where he is posted.
Meanwhile, to curb the spread of infection among its employees, BEST had launched operation zero in November last year. To date, rapid antigen tests of 8,251 employees were conducted so far of which only 34 (0.4 per cent) have been found positive.
