Inoculation drive for urban homeless to start from today

BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) will start the vaccination drive for inmates of shelters for the urban homeless (SUH) from the centre located at Chandrasekharpur here Friday. The city has eight SUHs under BMC jurisdiction. These are located at Malisahi, Ganganagar, Chandrasekharpur, Ghatikia, Bhimpur, Baramunda, Ashok Nagar and Unit-III (Kharavela Nagar). These shelters have 368 beds and 80% of them are occupied by beneficiaries, official sources said.
The Unit-III SUH has the highest capacity. It can accommodate 100 people, while the Baramunda centre has only 12 beds. Bhimpur and Malisahi SUH centres can accommodate 28 people each, while Ganganagar, Chandrasekharpur, Ghatikia and Ashok Nagar centres have 50 beds each.
As the SUHs have also given shelter to nomads and beggars, who may not have identity documents like Aadhaar card, BMC will hold a special vaccination session for them. The CoWIN portal will provide the facility to create a special vaccination session for them.
On May 12, the state government decided to prepare the list of people of vulnerable groups like saints, nomads, prison inmates and beggars for special vaccination sessions . The government directed the administration and urban bodies to identify and enlist these people.
For the Covid-19 vaccination, a beneficiary must register in the CoWIN portal for which identity and eligibility of the beneficiary through one of the seven prescribed ID proofs is required. But some vulnerable groups of people may not possess any of the seven identity cards. They should not be denied the vaccine in the absence of ID proof, said official sources.
The BMC recently started helping senior citizens living in old-age homes here to get vaccinated, if they are unable to visit the centres on their own.