Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (
NMC) and Zilla Parishad (
ZP) will start Covid-19
vaccination of all people above 45 years in the district from Thursday. Number of vaccination
centres has been increased from 217 to 249 to prevent crowding.
From March 1 onwards, 45+ persons with specified comorbidities were eligible along with 60+ senior citizens. The government had then permitted inoculation of all people above 45 years from April 1.
Guardian minister
Nitin Raut held a meeting regarding vaccination on Wednesday and directed officials to further increase the centres. “GMCH and IGGMCH should vaccinate all eligible people coming to
OPDs,” he said.
Raut said, “New
variant of
Covid-19 has been detected in the district. Cases are on spike. Vaccination is only solution to contain the transmission and control deaths. Therefore, eligible people should visit nearest centre and get the jab.”
Raut said vaccination programme was going on at satisfactory level in the district. “Number of beneficiaries is fourth highest among all districts in the state after Mumbai, Pune and Thane. Target is to vaccinate 6 lakh people in the district, which will be covered in next one month,” he said.
There were 202 centres in the district as on Wednesday, of which 81 are in city and 121 in rural. NMC has increased centres to 86, of which 40 are in NMC and government-run hospitals and health centres, and 46 in private hospitals where vaccination is payable.
The ZP will increase centres from 121 to 163 on Thursday.
The
MoHFW has on Wednesday revised guidelines giving priority to people who register online. As per MoHFW, on-the-spot vaccination will be allowed only after 3pm.
NMC officials said they were yet to receive the orders and will implement whatever decision is taken by MoHFW.
Municipal commissioner
Radhakrishnan B told TOI, “People should not crowd at the centres and follow Covid-19 appropriate behaviour. We will implement token system in case of rush. Centres will ask people not following Covid-19 guidelines of social distancing etc to come next day.”
NMC additional municipal commissioner Ram Joshi said vaccination will be held in two shifts at eight centres, including six health centres of NMC, AIIMS and IGGMCH. “Vaccination will be facilitated from 8am to 10pm at these centres,” he said.
NMC chief medical officer Dr Sanjay Chilkar said, “People should visit counters opened at all 10 zones in case they face any problem in registering online. Also, 100 staffers have been engaged for special camps organized by public representatives and NGOs in residential areas to register people. City buses are also provided for people who have no means to travel from their areas to vaccination centres.”
The vaccination in district increased to 12,974, of which 6,093 were in city and 6,881 in rural on Wednesday. Vaccination was below 10,000 a day ago. For the first time, number of beneficiaries in rural was more compared to city on Wednesday.