Mayor Firhad Hakim on Saturday said that chief minister Mamata Banerjee has asked the commissioner of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) to conduct door-to-door campaigns so more people take their Covid precautionary doses.
Officials of the KMC have said the response of people in taking booster doses was tepid.
Though the number of people turning up at Covid vaccination centres of the KMC has increased following a rise in Covid infections in the last couple of weeks, the enthusiasm still does not match what it was when vaccination began.
Officials of private hospitals in the city have also echoed a similar view.
Bengal reported 1,499 new Covid infections on Saturday.
The state had reported 1,739 new infections on Friday and 1,524 new infections on Thursday.
Hakim on Saturday pointed toward another problem. He said that the KMC would do its best to ensure that people who are 60 years and above take their booster doses when they become eligible. But the KMC’s hands were tied when it came to administering booster doses to those between 19 and 59.
“The Union health ministry has said that people who are between 19 and 59 can take their booster doses only from a private centre. They cannot take the vaccines from government centres,” said a senior official of the KMC’s health department.
“The chief minister yesterday (Friday) told the municipal commissioner to see that people take their booster doses. The KMC has to do door-to-door campaigns. We will do everything we can to see that people take booster doses,” Hakim said.
“But we can administer booster doses to only those who are 60 years and above because the Union health ministry did not allow us to administer booster doses to others,” said Hakim.
The KMC official said that as per the Union ministry’s policy, government centres can administer booster doses to those below 60 only if they are healthcare workers or frontline workers.
Hakim said that the KMC cannot force someone to take the booster dose from a private vaccination centre if the person is not willing.
A KMC official said that civic health workers can motivate people, hand over slips with specific time slots to take booster doses so that they do not have to wait at the vaccination centre. These could be some of the ways the person is allured to take the booster dose. But the KMC cannot do that for people who are eligible to take their booster doses only from private centres.