‘BMC moving in right direction’: Bombay High Court on civic body vaccinating 25% of disabled, bedridden beneficiaries

The BMC on Tuesday had informed the high court that between July 30 and August 9, of the 4,889 registered beneficiaries, 1,317 people have been inoculated.

Saying that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was “moving in the right direction” by vaccinating one-fourth of the entire population who are either bedridden or cannot move, the Bombay High Court on Thursday asked other civic bodies to follow BMC’s model to initiate similar drives.

The BMC on Tuesday had informed the high court that between July 30 and August 9, of the 4,889 registered beneficiaries, 1,317 people have been inoculated. “This figure constitutes roughly 25 per cent of total registered beneficiaries. Encouraging part is that none of the persons vaccinated had any adverse effects. We record our satisfaction that the BMC has been moving in the right direction. We expect the corporation to cover more such individuals in the days to come,” the Bench noted.

On August 10, the civic body had submitted an affidavit to a division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish S Kulkarni which has been hearing a PIL filed by city-based lawyers Dhruti Kapadia and Kunal Tiwari seeking directions to the Centre, the state and the BMC to provide door-to-door vaccination to people aged above 75, disabled and the bedridden.

Kapadia, the petitioner, had submitted additional suggestions for effective improvement of the state government’s policy for home vaccination of beneficiaries. The suggestions include effective monitoring of all beneficiaries for 48 hours post vaccination at home and development of an application where the medical history of the beneficiary can be stored which can be of immediate help in case of adverse reactions.

Additional Government Pleader Geeta Shastri representing the state government submitted that the suggestions were forwarded to state Covid task force for its consideration.

The Court also recorded that the Mira-Bhayander and Thane municipal corporations have also started home vaccination in areas covered by them.

On questions raised by petitioners regarding the role of NGOs in such drives, the BMC had said that it took the help of many organisations in some wards for additional manpower and ambulance services.

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