Even as BMC started labelling housing societies, Opposition raises questions on verification process; additional BMC commissioner says health staffers working with societies for the same
A fully-vaccinated logo being pasted on a society wall
While the BMC is distributing “fully vaccinated society” logos to buildings based on data from society office-bearers, there is no mechanism to check whether all the members of the society are indeed vaccinated.
The idea of such logo was put forward by Mumbai Suburbs Guardian Minister Aaditya Thackeray, who asked the civic body to design the logo during a review meeting on September 20. Accordingly, BMC on October 4 unveiled a logo with a QR code to identify buildings in the city where all adult residents are fully vaccinated. While the implementation started the next day, there is no mechanism to ascertain the number of societies eligible for the logo or to verify certificates of all residents.
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A number of housing societies stated that they have received the logo even without applying for one. “Someone from the ward office asked us whether all members of our society are fully vaccinated. Though we have a fair idea of such residents, we can’t check the certificates of everyone,” said a secretary of a building.
Dr Jitendra Jadhav, health officer of L ward which covers Kurla and parts of Chembur, said, “We received an order to look for fully vaccinated societies in our ward and label them after checking our data as well as verifying with the secretary/office-bearers. In the past 10 days, we have labelled more than 200 buildings in our ward. There are around 413 buildings in the area.”
Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner of G North ward comprising Dadar, Mahim and Dharavi, told mid-day that till Thursday they labelled 21 societies. “Our health officials have data of vaccinated people in the area; they are going to the societies and verifying it,” he added.
“If we get the name and details, we can verify the vaccination certificates of the persons. But even if we have the names and addresses, we don’t have any foolproof mechanism to check the number of people aged above 18 years in a society or how many of them have taken vaccines,” said a civic official.
The move has also led to discussions in the political sphere. “Such fancy announcements are just an eyewash and have nothing to do with the ground reality. How can the secretary or chairman gather information from society members? Do they have any authority to check the vaccination certificates? The ruling party is pressuring the administration to do such work for their election agenda,” said Prabhakar Shinde, group leader of the BJP.
Ravi Raja, Congress corporator and leader of opposition in the BMC, said, “There should be a perfect mechanism for verification of the number of people and their vaccination status; only then such certificates can be distributed. If the BMC labels societies without proper verification, then it doesn’t make sense.”
“Our health officers and staffers have the data of vaccination and they verify it. But they don’t have up to date data, and so we ask office-bearers of societies to cross-check and verify. The logo also has QR codes which show vaccine centres in that area to help people reach the centres,” said Suresh Kakani, additional commissioner of BMC.
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