Shimla, May 17
Jan Swasthya Association and Himachal Pradesh Gyan Vigan Samiti hails the delayed launch of 18 to 44 yrs age group vaccination drive in Himachal Pradesh flagging certain shortcoming in its execution. Convenor of JSA Satyavan Pundir and State secretary of HGVS Jianand Sharma said in a press statement here today said that Health Department should overcome the shortcomings as youth in the rural areas are facing difficulties while having to move from one place to other to seek first jab of Covid vaccine.
They alleged that government and health department did not conduct mass awareness and publicity of this drive resulting youth of rural areas finding it difficult to participate in it. They said that people could register for vaccination only in those areas where 4-G and good mobile connectivity was available as registration could not be uploaded on the portal easily where there is poor connectivity.
Secondly the portal was created in English language causing a lot of trouble to those who did not read/write the language, especially those living in rural areas. Many youth keep on waiting for the message and clear direction for schedule of booking after having registered on the portal. Terming the derive utmost important the JSA said that most youth are getting deprived of due to lack of publicity and proper information.
Learning a lesson from such mistakes, the department should properly run this program among the youth as it would play an effective role among the youth in the third wave, they observed in the statement.
JSA and HGVS considers this hill state among the top affected by the pandemic in the country and provision of vaccines could play a pivotal role to save the life of people and their economy. The civil rights group demanded to a special derive to be launched to effectively moved forward the vaccination programme by roping in the Panchayati Raj Institutions, Urban local bodies and government, non government organization, social and religious bodies.
