No fresh doses for the second day in a row; Roadblock, Chaos in Silchar, Police, Magistrate forced to intervene

More than COVID, people fear remaining jobless if they do not have a certificate to prove they have been vaccinated. As the COVID situation gradually comes under control, the administration across the country intensified the vaccination drive. Informal and unofficial nudges have induced fear of missing out among the unvaccinated lot. Experts have deemed it to be a “positive development” that more people are now volunteering to get the jabs. However, it adds an astounding amount of pressure on the supply chain.

Doses in the Cachar district are sent by roads. The district immunisation officer sends a vehicle to NHM Assam’s headquarters and the Director of Health’s office sanctions the vials. The doses then reach the office of the Additional Chief Medical and Health Officer (FW) located within the premise of Civil Hospital. The consignment carrying Covishield doses has not reached Cachar and the district has run out of vials. This has forced the administration to keep the vaccination for new beneficiaries at a halt.

Yesterday, according to the Cowin website’s dashboard which is the official source of vaccination statistics operated by the Union Ministry of Health and Family welfare, only 1500 odd first doses have been inoculated in Cachar. If highly placed sources are to be believed then most of the 1,518 names listed yesterday were inoculated the day before.

The officer in District Administration said, “Due to some technical issues in air transport, the doses have not reached Silchar and that is why there is no Covishield available for inoculation at the moment. Once we get the doses, we will again resume vaccination for new beneficiaries. Covaxin second dose inoculation continues.”

An officer in Dispur said that the number has dropped in Guwahati too. On average, around 10,000 doses of Covishield are inoculated daily in Kamrup Metro, however, the number dropped to 1900 yesterday.

As this information never got communicated to the mass, people kept queueing up at vaccination centres across Cachar district. In BC Roy School Rongpur, beneficiaries stood in the queue last night. “We returned home two days in a row as they do not innoculate more than 300 beneficiaries and it follows a first come first serve formula. I have two kids at home and yet I came here to stand at 9:00 pm last night. I got myself the seventh position. After staying there the whole night, today morning, I got to know that there won’t be any vaccination. How is this fair,” questioned a lady present at the centre.

She was not the only one, there were few hundred like her. Most of them, residents of Rongpur ward number 5. All of them gathered to block the road near Sadarghat bridge that connects the town to the rest of the world. Huge traffic jam on both ends of the road with few vehicles plying to the airport with air passengers forced the Police department to mobilise.

The officer in charge of Silchar Sadar Police Station, Ditumoni Goswami along with a magistrate rushed to the spot. After long bouts of verbal dialogues, the protesters agreed to lift the blockade. Cachar Police informed that no force was exerted on the protesters and they managed to find a peaceful solution to it.

If Covishield will be available tomorrow? The district administration is yet to receive the consignment of doses and once they get it, they will roll out a plan is what has been officially communicated so far.