Mechanics need jab priority
Denied vaccination during ongoing drive in TS for ‘superspreaders’
Some of the people who are vulnerable to Covid-19 pandemic including vehicle mechanics and workers involved in the state government’s flagship Haritha Haram programme are not included in the ‘superspreaders’ category, thus denying them the chance to get vaccinated on priority basis.
Nodal agencies in the city have not included wayside vehicle mechanics in the superspreaders list. Mechanics are moving from pillar to post to get Covid-19 jabs while influential people are thronging vaccination centres with super spreader tags and getting the shots done. Surprisingly, authorities have also not included those who are working in parks and public nurseries in the super spreaders list.
Several issues have come to the fore during the 10day vaccination drive which started on May 28. Ten categories of super spreaders have been identified for this purpose, including street vendors, grocery shop owners, auto and cab drivers, fair price shop dealers, delivery personnel, petrol pump staff and others. However, on Wednesday, people gathered in huge numbers at Bowenpally Market Yard to get Covid-19 jab, surprisingly, most of them coming in swanky cars claiming to be super spreaders.
Mohammed Razzak, a mechanic at Karthikeya Nagar at Tarnaka, said despite approaching many officials, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) authorities were reluctant to include mechanics in the vaccination drive, since they were not included in the potential super spreader category by the state government. Ironically, the authorities have been giving a red-carpet welcome to politicians and their family members to the vaccination camps. “The lockdown being imposed by the government has already shattered our livelihood. My daily income fell from `1,000 to `500. On top of that, I had a major struggle when one of my family members tested Covid-19 positive last week. My struggle started right from finding a hospital bed to a graveyard for burial. Since our family could not afford treatment in a private hospital or a nursing home, I lost my 37-year-old younger brother,” Razzak said. He said that now he was worried about his 26year-old wife who entered into her eighth month of pregnancy. “I am living in a panic state due to the condition of my wife and am trying hard to get
Covid-19 jab for her,” he added.
With the government announcing the launch of a special drive to administer Covid vaccines to super spreaders, the GHMC initiated the process of issuing coupons (tokens) to the vendors at different city markets. The vendors who have received the coupons from the sanitary field assistants (SFAs) and other staff members have been giving them to ineligible persons. In fact, the corporation authorities have suspended officials in the Charminar circle for handing over the coupons to ineligible persons in the Charminar circle. However, the field inspection conducted by this newspaper revealed that the corporation authorities have been continuing to give jab to ineligible persons at Bowenpally Market Yard.
This apart, corporation authorities are yet to recognise the staff working in nurseries and city parks as either frontline workers or super spreaders. Sai Kumar, working in Public Gardens said despite several requests, the authorities were refusing to give them jabs. “In the upcoming monsoon, we are ones who distribute saplings to politicians, bureaucrats and citizens. We get in contact with several people while distributing saplings at designated nurseries and ironically, the authorities have been refusing to vaccinate us,” he added.
When the issue was taken to the notice of chief secretary Somesh Kumar, city mayor Gadwal R. Vijaylakshmi, GHMC commissioner DS Lokesh Kumar and additional commissioner for health Santosh Badavath, all of them maintained silence.