On Thursday, frontline workers of the BrihanMumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking finally started receiving messages for vaccine inoculation from the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
The transport undertaking had proposed the names of all the 34,000 employees as recipients for the COVID-19 vaccines in the second phase. Amidst the pandemic, BEST had emerged to become the lifeline of Mumbai
by ferrying essential service providers when railway services were completely suspended. To ensure uninterrupted services, employees of both the transport
and electricity wing of BEST were on ground throughout the lockdown period.
BEST had proposed the names of its employees for the vaccine program in January itself. Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani had also confirmed that all the 34,000 workers would be eligible for being beneficiaries.
"We have not discriminated against a single BEST employee based on their designation or job role. Every single employee was on the road during the
pandemic and all of them are eligible to become beneficiaries for the vaccination," Kakani had told the Free Press Journal. However, one month after the registration, senior officials of BEST were still anxiously waiting
from BMC to get an update on the procedure.
