Centre, states pitch in to dispel vaccine hesitancy in rural areas

NEW DELHI: “If you get vaccine, we will meet again. If you don’t, we will meet at Narmada ghat,” cautions a colourful banner on an auto rickshaw in Bhopal, referring to a cremation ground in the central Indian city.

Almost 1500km away, in Ganderbal, a little north of Srinagar, religious leaders are using loudspeakers at mosques to urge people to go and get vaccinated.

A report put out by the union panchayati raj ministry said “in Gujarat, some panchayats even offered 50% concession in panchayat taxes to promote vaccination” while some others formed “Gram yoddha samiti” comprisingpanchayat leaders, ASHA workers and local police to counsel villagers.

These are some of the efforts on in rural India as various administrations, central, state and local, work towards encouraging people in smaller cities, towns or villages to take Covid-19 vaccines.

While the overwhelming issue right now, even in rural India, is supplies, there is also hesitancy caused by fear of vaccines, or prompted by misapprehensions regarding them.

To date, India has fully vaccinated 47,224,623 people and partially vaccinated 148,029,921, according to the HT dashboard.

The current population eligible for vaccination is 940 million (those over the age of 18 years).

Assuming that even 60% of this is rural (Census 2011 put the proportion at 68.9%), this works out to 564 million people in rural India who need to be vaccinated.

Based on data from health ministry’s Co-WIN dashboard analysed by HT, 13.4% of all adults living in India’s rural districts have received at least one shot of the Covid-19 vaccine till June 7, while this proportion was 24% in urban and 18% in semi-urban districts. According to a HT analysis on May 8, around the peak of the second wave, rural and semi-rural India was contributing almost 58% of new Covid-19 cases.