Ward health clinics of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) will reserve four hours in the morning from Monday to vaccinate those who are above 60 and who find it difficult to stand in long queues or book slots using the chatbot technology.

While the CMC is working out plans to reduce harassment of recipients, the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation is administering the doses from only two hospitals, despite having 41 ward offices and six borough offices. This is leading to long queues outside the hospitals.

In Calcutta, 101 ward health clinics of the CMC will administer both first and second dose of Covishield to those above 60, between 9am and 1pm. Civic officials said they were expecting “manageable queues” for senior citizens from 9am. Only 100 doses will be administered every day from each of the 101 clinics in the 9am-1pm slot, said a CMC official.

From 1pm to 4pm, vaccines will be administered to those who have booked their slots through the WhatsApp chatbot. “A person above 60 who has booked a slot through the chatbot should turn up at the specified time, which will be after 1pm. They should not come between 9am and 1pm because that four-hour slot is reserved for the elderly people who are not in a position to wait in queues or book slots through WhatsApp,” said official in the CMC health department. To start the booking process, one has to type “Hi” and WhatsApp it to 8335999000.

In 41 other ward health clinics across the city, the Covaxin second dose will be administered to anyone above 45. None of the clinics will vaccinate people in the 18-44 age group, except those who fall in priority groups such as hawkers, traders and construction workers.

People in the priority groups will be vaccinated at 12 dedicated centres in the city. “A small number of 18-plus recipients who had taken their Covaxin first dose at private hospitals in early May will soon become eligible for the second dose.They have to take the second dose at private hospitals,” the CMC official said.

Despite the plans, officials are worried about the turnout during the periods meant for senior citizens. “The vaccination will be on a first-come-first-served basis. We do not want senior citizens to stand in a queue for long. If the queue gets too long, the first 100 will be given tokens and the rest will be asked to come another day,” said the CMC official. People can get the list of the CMC clinics administering the first and second dose of Covishield and the ones administering the second dose of Covaxin from their nearest civic health clinic.

In the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation area, the only two places where shots are being administered are Matri Sadan Hospital in Salt Lake and Narayanpur Matri Sadan hospital in Rajarhat. “The supply is erratic. We cannot say when we can start giving the first dose to people of all age groups,” said an official of the civic body.