Mumbai’s G-North ward under the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has written to individual housing societies in its periphery to accommodate paid vaccination programmes within their properties, adding that the ward will assist in bringing private hospitals to the equation.
G-North has a number of high-rise and ground-level residential establishments covering regions like Dadar, Dharavi, and Mahim. After a housing society sends the required application to their local ward office, private hospitals will conduct a vaccination camp for members of the society.
This comes as the BMC issued fresh guidelines a few weeks ago on vaccinating housing societies using Private Covid Vaccination Centres (PCVCs) as long as the societies have enough people to receive the vaccine.
Societies can also contact local COVID war rooms to receive necessary information on the matter. These war rooms were instituted at the height of the pandemic last year to allocate beds and direct other essential information to the citizens. A majority of the housing societies in the G-North ward received notices containing this information.
Also read - Aaditya Thackeray Instructs BMC To Speed Up Vaccination Drive In Mumbai
Speaking on this plan, Assistant Municipal Commissioner of the ward, Kiran Dighavkar said, “At least three hospitals have shown interest in vaccinating society members in case they apply to us. However, the camps can only be organised in the later half of June when these hospitals are expecting fresh vaccine stocks as current stocks will be used up for those who have already registered.”
Member of a citizen forum in the G North Ward, Bhagyashri Kelkar said that citizens in individual societies are facing difficulties finding a slot on the Centre’s CoWin application.
“However, holding camps in smaller buildings would be neither practical or economical as the number of residents may be lesser. In such a scenario, if the entire lane comes together for the camp, it can be organised in either a college or school as they are shut because of covid restrictions. Also, in smaller buildings, many senior citizens may have already taken their vaccine doses,” she recommended.
Some high-rise societies in Mumbai are already conducting such vaccination drives with private hospitals reportedly charging nearly Rs 1,000 per dose or even more.
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