Registration of state govt staff for COVID vaccination initiated

KOLKATA: The Bengal government is initiating registration of all state government employees to ensure Covid vaccination coverage to the maximum state government employees and parastatal on a priority basis.

Earlier a priority list containing names of seven lakh employees including health workers, police, municipal workers and other state government employees, who are frontline workers, were prepared.

Now the district magistrates have been directed to register names of the employees of different line departments as steps have been taken for vaccination of all state government employees in different sectors including transport and teachers.

All including teachers and non-teaching staff were requested to register their names when they will get contacted by concerned officials of the state Health department and the district administration.

While holding a Press conference at Nabanna on Thursday, Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay said: "Now the vaccination will practically reach most of the state government and parastatal employees of the government of West Bengal".

The total number would get calculated only after the data in this regard gets collected. It may be recalled that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday tweeted to personally request the state Health and Family Welfare Department to ensure maximum Covid vaccination coverage for all frontline employees of the state government including teachers. "I would like to thank everyone at GoWB who've led the fight against #COVID from the front medics, paramedics, police, govt staff, teachers & other parastatals. I care for all my colleagues at GoWB & have personally requested @wbdhfw to ensure max vaccination coverage for them," she tweeted.

Till Wednesday, around 5.8 lakh people have been vaccinated so far in the past 26 days against a target of 15.30 lakh that is 38 per cent of the set target.