Bijapur: At a time when the Central government has announced that the vaccination will be open to all those above the age of 18 from May 1, a small town in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur has adopted an innovative strategy to encourage people to come for vaccination. The residents who come for vaccination at the designated vaccine centres are being offered tomatoes as an encouragement, news agency ANI reported and shared photographs on Twitter.

As per the report, many women were seen getting packets of tomatoes as they stepped out of a medical centre, possibly after vaccination. An official said that it was an effort to “encourage” locals to get inoculated.

“It’s being done to encourage them. We appealed to vegetable vendors, they supplied to the municipality,” Purshottam Sallur was quoted as saying by ANI.

Several users on Twitter were happy about the initiative of the Bijapur town. One user said that the move could be emulated by the government as well.

The Central government on Monday said that all above 18 years of age will be eligible for COVID vaccination from May 1 while private hospitals and states will be able to buy doses from manufacturers. The move from the Centre is aimed at scaling up inoculation came as 25 lakh cases were added in just 15 days in the country and several states like Maharashtra, Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan demanded that the age restriction of 45 years be removed for the vaccination.