COIMBATORE: Covid-19 vaccine tokens will now be distributed by the city corporation’s engineering department and sanitation department staff, instead of it being under the sole purview of the sanitation department.
Commissioner Raja Gopal Sunkara on Thursday ordered distribution of tokens for vaccine at corporation schools by ward junior engineers and zone assistant engineers of the department after complaints poured in from the public that despite waiting from 4am, not all the allotted doses of Covishield and Covaxin were administered.
“This led to altercations with supervisors of the sanitation department and police,” said a corporation official.
The commissioner told TOI that he had “received complaints of non-officials distributing tokens at the school and sometimes corporation officials not reaching on time to distribute the tokens themselves.
So, the main instruction is that only corporation officials must distribute tokens,”.
Corporation’s health department officials said when an inquiry was launched into why tokens were not given to the public, supervisors said DMK members bypassed the token system to get vaccine for their dear and near ones.
“Not just DMK members, even Congress members harass our supervisors.
They come at 9.30am and demand we vaccinate their recommended people before we start vaccinating the public with tokens,” said a senior official.
“We can give tokens for only the remaining doses, angering public.” The problem seems most concentrated in added areas in north and east zone, say officials.
“On Tuesday, there were complaints about DMK members ensuring that only people with local addresses on their Aadhaar cards and from the same locality got tokens at Cheran Managar Corporation School.
This happened at Vellakinar also,” said an official.
On Thursday, a scuffle broke out between the public and officials in front of Ondipudur Corporation School after many people waiting since 2am failed to get tokens.