NEW DELHI: The government has managed to fully vaccinate as many as 11,000 labourers in the past four months at three major construction sites in the city. These sites are — Central Vista, Land T (Airport) and ITPO, Pragati Maidan.
It was on September 5, when AAP MLA Raghav Chadha had flagged off the vaccination on wheels drive, aiming to reach and inoculate labourers against Covid-19. The vaccination on wheels aimed to get around 150 persons vaccinated every day without appointments.
However, the city’s night shelters tell a different story as many people are yet to get a single dose. In the past seven months, only 4,800 persons who took refuge in these shelters were administered the first and second doses, while 2,200 have only got the first dose.
Bipin Rai, of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board, said, “This is the data for the 206 night shelters in Delhi. In the summer, we had around 5,000 people taking refuge in the shelters and in the winter, the number went up to 8,000.” Due to the unavailability of smartphones, labourers were not able to secure appointments and reach their nearest vaccination centres. Taking this into account, the Delhi government decided to take vaccination to their doorsteps.
One of the district immunization officers (DIO) of New Delhi, Dr Harsh, said: “At this point, very few labourers are left whose vaccination is not done yet. The labourer group keeps changing and we organise camps frequently. At one point of time, we covered 100% of labourers at these three major construction sites.” He said that 160 homeless children in the age group of 15-18 years were vaccinated under his jurisdiction in the shelters including Rainbasera, DUSIB- near Bangla Sahib Gurudwara, Child Welfare Centre and Nirashrit Balika Sadan at Ambedkar Marg.
Geeta Grover, Sub-Divisional Magistrate Chanakyapuri, said, “We are trying not to miss any labourer during the drive. We’ve our vans standing at all major construction sites, where they can go and get themselves vaccinated.”
Praveen Jain, SDM (Headquarters) West Delhi, said, “We have conducted a Har-Ghar Dastak programme and many people are being covered. We have construction sites as well, where anyone without an identity card can go and get vaccinated with a facilitator login. However, regarding the homeless children, we are in the process of vaccinating them at the Nari Niketan Complex.”
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