Beneficiaries who had registered for a covid jab at Quest Drive-in centre and didnt have their vehicle numbers registered were asked by officials at Quest to go to St Xavier's College walk-in centre to get the scheduled jab, which is conducting a parallel vaccination drive.
On Sunday, when Tangra resident Anjali Marwah was having her mother, a diabetic, registered for a drive-in vaccination slot at the Quest Mall for Tuesday, little did she know that her hope of getting her mother immunized by exposing her to minimal risk would be shattered.
Talking to The Telegraph Online from Quest Mall, a distressed Marwah said, “My mother is diabetic and a senior citizen. I wanted to have her take the jab with minimal risk of exposure and wait. But when we came here, we along with many registered jab-seekers were in for a rude shock when we were told that we would need to go to St Xavier's College for a walk-in vaccination as our vehicle numbers were not registered while booking the slot.”
Kamlesh Arora waits for her turn at the St. Xavier's College, Calcutta, on Tuesday. Anjali Marwah
She continued, “I understand that the vehicle numbers need to be registered, but we as applicants are not at fault. We followed the step-by-step procedure to get registered. We, unlike a few, had not been asked to feed in our vehicle number. And there are many like us, who now have two options – either go for the walk-in or come back later.” She even claimed that she had spotted lots of people without vehicles coming to the drive-in centre for the jab and being refused. “There is some communication gap and the officials need to take care of it,” Marwah.
Soumik Das, an MNC employee and a Covid survivour was also informed by the officials at Quest to get vaccinated at St Xavier's Walk-in drive. He said, “My father is 82-years-old and a diabetic. My aunt who is accompanying us is also a senior citizen. The whole idea for registering for a drive-in was to minimise the risk. But the technical glitch has now left us with no option but to wait at St Xavier's for the jab."
Beneficiaries wait at the St. Xavier's College, Calcutta, to get vaccinated on Tuesday. Anjali Marwah
He added, "We don’t want to go back home without getting immunized as we know that there is a vaccine crunch.”
When The Telegraph Online contacted the CMHO Dr. Subrata Roy Choudhary, he said, “We are aware of the glitch and are trying our best to have the issue resolved so that none of those registering for drive-in vaccination have to face a similar issue in the future.” He even acknowledged having interacted with a lady (Anjali Marwah) on the issue and having requested her to go to the alternate venue mentioned by CMC for the shot.
On being asked about people complaining about having to wait at St Xavier's with senior citizens for the jab, he assured that it would be taken care of.
Significantly, within15 minutes of having interacted with the CMHO, this correspondent got a call from Marwah once again. “I had initially thought of going back, but on second thought I came to St Xavier's just to check if CMC would take care of so many vaccine-seeking individuals who had been asked reluctantly to opt for the walk-in organized by the institute. I am glad that I did. The people here were extremely helpful and cooperative. My mother finally got vaccinated,” she said.
