OUR CORRESPONDENT
TINSUKIA: Agriculture Minister Atul Bora, who is also Guardian Minister for Tinsukia district, visited various vaccination centres at Tinsukia, Digboi and Margherita on Tuesday.
In Tinsukia, he visited Manab Kalyan Bhavan and Lalji Bhavan and appreciated the NGOs and social organizations for their overwhelming support in the vaccination programme. Later addressing media he said that Tinsukia recorded achievement on the first day of mega vaccination programme on Monday by administering 17,800 doses against the target of 10,000.
Despite vaccination programme undertaken on war footing, he was apprehensive about poor response among rural population. He said that misconception coupled with rumour had hampered the vaccination exercise. Though the positivity rate has declined to 2.3 and was likely to be down by another 3-4 days, it was early to set next strategy like total lockdown, said the minister responding to queries.
Later, the minister visited the designated vaccination centres in Town High School, Margherita, No.1 Golai Hindi L.P School, Digboi and Lions Club, Digboi and interacted with civil officials at Margherita. He was brief by Palash Rajkumar Ahom, ADC i/c, about the ongoing vaccination drive and all the COVID preparedness that was being undertaken in the subdivision, informing further that in Margherita, 47 vaccination centres were running the drive in almost all pockets of the subdivision in a brisk manner, adhering to all COVID protocol.
Rameswar Teli, Union Minister, AL Gyani, Guardian Secretary of Tinsukia, and Pawar Narsing Sambhaji, Deputy Commissioner of Tinsukia, accompanied the Minister during his visits. The record, however, available on Monday's mega vaccination launch was not all well for few centres like Sarbojonin HS Centre in Tinsukia town which recorded only 99 against target of 400 while Chapakhowa Gaon, Ratanpur and Sunpura HS in Sadiya recorded 50 per cent to as low as 30 per cent of target of 300, even as two urban centres of Digboi, namely Rotary Club and Lions Club vaccinated less than 80 per cent. There was encouraging response from tea garden areas which was of serious concern for the Tinsukia district administration.