Appreciating the BMC’s efforts in the home vaccination drive, the Bombay High Court has asked other civic bodies and municipal councils in the state to follow suit.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarnni was hearing a PIL filed by advocates Dhruti Kapadia and Kunal Tiwari, seeking a direction to the Union government to start door-to-door vaccination drives for senior citizens, specially-abled, bedridden and wheelchair-bound as they are unable to visit a centre.

Kapadia, on Thursday, informed the court that similar drives have been started in Mira-Bhayander Municipal Corporation and Thane Municipal Corporation.

Taking note of this, the judges said, “We encourage other municipal corporations and municipal councils to initiate measures for home vaccination of bedridden persons in accordance with the (Maharashtra) state policy and following the same pattern as that of the BMC.”

However, Kapadia said that the corporation failed to clearly chalk out the role of NGOs in the entire process. The BMC’s affidavit had stated that it will take the help of NGOs in some wards for manpower support and basic life support ambulances.

To this, the HC observed that there was nothing on record to stop the corporation from taking assistance from NGOs to administer vaccines.

Meanwhile, while applauding the BMC’s efforts, the judges also said that it was “encouraging to know that none of the 1,317 vaccinated persons had any side effects”.

The BMC had filed an affidavit early this week stating that it has administered vaccines to 1,317 bedridden persons as of August 9 and is not a single case of Adverse Event Following Immunization. So far, 4,889 bedridden individuals have registered. After going through the affidavit, the chief justice said, “More than 25% percent of the registered persons have been vaccinated. The encouraging part is that none of the 1,317 persons vaccinated had any adverse effect.” “We record satisfaction that the corporation is moving in the right direction. We expect corporation to cover more such persons in the home vaccination drive in the coming days,” added the judges. Regarding Kapadia’s suggestions for the drive, additional government pleader Geeta Shastri told the HC that they had forwarded these to the Maharashtra State Covid Task Force.