At a time when the vaccination drives in all the municipal and government hospitals remained suspended on Thursday due to shortage of doses, the inoculation drives were carried out smoothly in the housing societies the same day in the city.
The residents of eastern suburbs, who have joined hands with elected representatives for the ‘Sanjivani at your doorstep’ – a campaign for doorstep vaccination drive, have said that the drive went as planned in many societies on Thursday.
Manoj Kotak, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Mumbai North East constituency, who initiated the campaign, said that on Thursday, approximately 600 doses were administered to the beneficiaries.
“We had arranged three camps today covering housing societies at Vikhroli and Bhandup where nearly 600 beneficiaries were inoculated on Thursday,” Kotak told FPJ.
“Now the BMC should also think about procuring their own doses like how the private hospitals are doing, they are only being dependent on the center, while it seems that majority of the people are now taking doses from private hospitals,” said Kotak.
In another housing society – Excelsior Heights in the western suburbs, close to 400 beneficiaries received their doses on Thursday.
“We have five towers in our society and on Thursday nearly 400 eligible beneficiaries took their dose. Most of the beneficiaries were from the 18-44 age groups who took their first dose, while some senior citizens above 60 years took their second dose,” said Priyank Deshmukh – a resident and general secretary of the society federation.
Meanwhile, political leaders of the Opposition parties blamed the BMC administration for not maintaining a proper system in the process of vaccine procurement.
Vinod Mishra, senior BJP corporator and leader of the group in BMC, said that the municipal administration should rethink its policy of vaccine procurement.
“The administration has made a joke of the entire BMC, on one hand they are floating a global tender on the other they are writing to the mayors of seven sister cities requesting accessibility in the procedure of vaccine procurement,” Mishra told FPJ.
“Instead of floating the global tender the BMC should have brought consignments of vaccines directly,” he said.