BMC Urges People To Register For Vaccination To Avoid Crowding At Centres

People crowd the UPHC Kapil Prasad vaccination centre, Pokhariput in Bhubaneswar on Monday: Photograph Suprakash Mishra

Bhubaneswar: With the commencement of third-phase COVID-19 vaccination in the state capital on Monday, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has requested people not visit the session sites without online registration and booking slots.

Talking to mediapersons, BMC Commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhary said a target was set for vaccination of around 11,500 people of whom 6,700 are in the 18-44 age group.

“What we found that there was a large gathering of people in all 26 government healthcare facilities in the morning and afternoon session of which most of them had come without registering their name online. For some session sites, we had provided 200 doses. But, we found the gathering of about 500 people,” Chaudhary said.

“As the BMC has already announced that there will be no vaccination without registration, the gathering of people at these places without registration is a gross violation of social distancing norms. Besides, there is a possibility of contracting the virus,” he added.

Stating that the vaccination programme is mismanaged due to large gathering of people, he requested all not to visit the vaccination centre without registration.