The mop-up drive of the Covid-19 vaccination drive for the first dose receivers was completed on Monday at the Duttabad primary healthcare centre.

The second round of vaccination too has started here and according to an official, most of the people on the list have yet to turn up for the second round of shots. “Around 90 persons took the shot during the mop-up of the first round and we are expecting the second round numbers to swell during the mop-up drive as well,” said an official.

However, the percentage of vaccine receivers in the first round remained low with around 35 per cent people who featured on the list finally turning up to receive the shot, according to sources at the vaccine centre.

A Swasthya Bhavan official said vaccines were now being administered to civic body workers and Bidhannagar Commissionerate personnel apart from healthcare workers at the centre. “The drive for civic workers is on. However many are not turning up. In places where Bidhannagar Commissionerate personnel are being vaccinated the turnout is encouraging,” he said.

According to an official at the centre, now even the CoWin app was performing moderately well and sending out text messages to the recipients regularly. “The app, although initially glitchy, is performing moderately well and the recipients are getting SMS updates in the run-up to the date of vaccination regularly,” said the official.

An official of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation’s health department said that they were receiving various reasons from civic workers for not taking the vaccine. “While many are still scared of the vaccine itself many are perturbed that they might have to make lifestyle changes if they take the vaccine,” said the official.

According to the official, they were planning to hold awareness camps at Poura Bhavan as well as in different borough offices of the civic body to encourage more civic workers to take the shots.

On Wednesday, emphasising it is important to roll out rapid vaccination programme for people of the state before elections, chief minister Mamata Banerjee wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stating that the government of West Bengal had decided to procure adequate quantity of vaccines for members of the public at large.