Biswabrata Goswami
KRISHNAGAR, 27 JULY: An aged woman who queued in front of the office of the ex-chairman of the Krishnagar municipality for getting a signature on the photocopy of her Aadhar document from the authority suddenly fell ill this afternoon. Her daughter-in-law, who accompanied her to the municipality, soon took her away to an isolated site and provided first aid.
It was not an exceptional incident that occurred in the municipality campus today. Scores of elderly persons who queued in the campus to get the signature of the ex-chairman on their Aadhar documents by which they can get Covid vaccines from the inoculation centers, had to fight each other to be a fortunate one and many of them thus fell ill.
But, their patience broke down when they heard that no jabs would be provided to them for today and they will have to come again on Thursday. It was then around 3 pm.
As scores of people queued in front of the ex-chairman Ashim Saha’s office inside the municipality campus for getting ‘vaccine passes’ from him, most of them got infuriated and they launched agitation.
The agitating people including aged persons alleged that they had lined up since morning and by afternoon, the queue had turned serpentine. All of a sudden, they were asked to leave the place as no vaccine pass will be provided to them because the turnout outnumbered the allotted doses (150 jabs) for the day. They were also asked to come on Thursday.
“If they announce it in the morning, we never waste our time. Many elderly persons, who face various difficulties, came here and were stranded for hours in the queue. Suddenly, they announced at around 3 pm that no vaccine would be provided for the day. This is inhumane and unethical. So, we launched a protest and demanded to provide the pass to them for the vaccination on Thursday,” said Atul Das, a local resident.
Later, Mr Saha, allegedly being pressured by the agitating people, agreed to issue passes and the beneficiaries got the passes for the vaccination to be held on Thursday.
When asked Mr Saha, however, denied any agitation he faced today. “Some BJP supporters may have launched agitation outside of my office, but no one submitted any deputation to me. We are facing acute shortage of vaccine doses. Every day, we provide 1500 jabs to the people from our three inoculation centers. But, today we got only 450 jabs and these were given from our three centers. Due to shortage of jabs, we could not provide the vaccines to all people who were stranded in the queue.”
Tags: #KrishnagarMunicipality #AshimSaha #CovidVaccine #Agitation
