CHANDIGARH
As per the Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Mansukh Mandaviya, Chandigarh stands at zero with regards to vaccinating its prisoners. While responding to the query of his colleague Aparajita Sarangi on Covid-19 vaccination of the prisoners, Mandaviya replied that till August 4 2021, none of the prisoners have received a jab.
Surprisingly, many of the States/UT including Chandigarh either didn’t give a single jab to any prisoner or lagging in the count of inoculating the second jab as well. Whereas there are some states like UP, Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra who are way ahead of Chandigarh, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh.
As per MoHFW, COVID-19 vaccination of prisoners is included and recorded under the vaccination of ‘persons without prescribed identity cards’ which includes nomads, prison inmates, inmates in mental health institutions, citizens in old age homes, roadside beggars, people residing in rehabilitation centres/camps and any other identified eligible persons, aged 18 years or more, and not having any of the nine prescribed individual Photo ID Cards.
In Chandigarh, No prisoner yet gets the first jab, forget the second. Chandigarh has 1120 prisoners. On the other hand, Haryana is way better than Chandigarh. Haryana had inoculated 8467 prisoners with the first shot of Covid vaccine and 1511 got the second jab. Punjab, on the contrary, 2518 prisoners got the first jab and only 6 prisoners got the Second Jab as well. Simultaneously, in Himachal Pradesh, 847 prisoners got the first jab and no second shot is inoculated so far.
Uttar Pradesh is leading out of all states while inoculating its 24230 prisoners with first jab and 2789 with second shot of vaccine. Delhi is walking on the notes of Chandigarh as only 2 prisoners got the first jab and no second jab shot in any inmates of Delhi jails. Madhya Pradesh is doing good in vaccinating its prisoners— 12,980 got the first jab and 2,826 got the second shot so far till 4 August 2021. Maharashtra too is leading in vaccinating prisoners— 21,868 got first and 1183 got the second jab.