More than 4,700 Mumbaikars from various walks of life took their COVID-19 vaccine dose during a two-day vaccination drive organised by multiple citizen groups at Bandra.
The drive was organised within the premises of Podar International school. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and citizen associations like I Love Mumbai Foundation, Mumbai North Central District Forum (MNCDF), Mumbai Dhadkan and Bandra Khar Santacruz Citizens’ Forum supported the event. Private healthcare service providers Healing Salve sponsored the cost of the vaccines.
According to the members of the citizen groups, the drive was arranged to vaccinate underprivileged beneficiaries who were not able to get their doses so far. Aditya Agarwal, managing director of the Healing Salve, said that special arrangements were also made for specially-abled citizens and senior citizens who came to take the doses.
"There were six vaccination booths at the centre, which were bifurcated into two seperate floors. Each floor had the capacity to inoculate 350 beneficiaries per hour and of the floors were dedicated towards inoculating senior citizens and special;y-abled citizens," Agarwal said.
Throughout the two-day drive that was held on June 26 and June 27, 4,760 beneficiaries took their dose. Agarwal said that, owing to so many fraudulent vaccination drives being arranged in the city, no beneficiary was allowed to leave the venue unless they had their certificate generated.
Trivankumar Karnani, founder and spokesperson of MNCDF, said that more than 70 per cent of the beneficiaries were from the underprivileged category. "The drive was open to all and it was a sigh of relief for many people who were not able to book slots till now," said Karnani.
Rahul Rohra, founder and owner of Executive Enclave Hotels, which was the hospitality partner, said that e many autorickshaw drivers, shopkeepers and street-side vendors were also inoculated. "To ensure that we are able to reach out to the maximum number of people, our volunteers reached out to the vendors outside and got them inoculated," said Rohra.
