GHMC launches app to weed out ineligible from vax drive

In order to stop ineligible people from obtaining tokens for Covid-19 vaccination, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has decided to make the enrolment process through a specially designed mobile app from Wednesday.

As the mega vaccination drive against Coronavirus for the super spreaders category by the GHMC entered the fifth day on Tuesday, a total of 27,117 have been vaccinated so far. With several instances of ineligible people managing to grab tokens for vaccination from GHMC staffers, the civic body has decided to introduce the app, where officials and staff will fill the beneficiary details along with their photograph and Aadhaar details.

The vaccination drive started on May 28 for a period of 10 days, targeting 25 to 30 lakh people who are vulnerable to the virus in the GHMC area.

Union minister G. Kishan Reddy visited vaccination centres at the GHMC playground at Amberpet, Banjara Gardens at Banjara Hills, MP Gardens at Mehdipatnam and Government High School at Musheerabad. Speaking on the occasion, he said, “The Centre has partnered with the state governments to curb the spread of Covid-19. It has already funded the companies which are producing the vaccines to enhance the production capacity. By December, the majority of India’s adult population will be vaccinated, do not panic if you don’t get the vaccine now, we will see to it you will be vaccinated soon.” the minister said.

Vendors from Ramnagar fish market, which is mostly crowded with customers, leaving both the sellers and buyers exposed to the disease, had a special vaccination at the Government High School, Musheerabad. It is estimated that around 500 fish merchants, 300 of whom cut and clean the fish, and 200 others including other workers, were among those vaccinated on Tuesday.

Dr Y. Hemalatha, assistant medical officer, health GHMC, said, “A total of 975 persons have been vaccinated on Tuesday, most of them sellers at the fish market. From Wednesday, enrolment will be through the app, where the GHMC’s, sanitary field assistants, sanitary jawans and tax inspectors will register the details,” she said.

Meanwhile, the GHMC said as a part of Annapurna free food for the poor programme,

75,340 people had been delivered food during the lockdown. As part of the ongoing fever survey,

1,439 teams visited 86,726 houses, taking the number of homes visited so far to 12,16,596, an official said.