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This is an archive article published on April 9, 2021

Pimpri-Chinchwad halts vaccination drive due to shortage of doses; Aundh centre to remain open

The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation's medical chief said they are expecting new stock to arrive today.

The Aundh General Hospital. (Express Photo)The Aundh General Hospital. (Express Photo)

The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) on Friday shut down all its 87 vaccination centres — 59 of its own and 28 private ones — owing to shortage of vaccines. However, the Pune Zilla Parishad said citizens from Pimpri-Chinchwad can get vaccinated at the Aundh General Hospital.

PCMC’s Additional Health and Medical Chief, Dr Pavan Salve, said, “All vaccination centres will remain shut on Friday as there is no stock available.”

He added that as many as 2,30,000 citizens have been vaccinated by the 87 vaccination centres since the inoculation drive started on January 16. “Efforts are on to get adequate stocks of the vaccine. As soon as we get it, we will restart the vaccination centres,” he informed.

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Dr Salve said they were expecting the new stock to arrive on Friday. “We expect some stock to come in today (Friday) so that we can make the centres operational again from tomorrow (Saturday),” he added.

Reacting to this, NCP MLA Rohit Pawar said, “The BJP should at least look after the civic body it rules. It has closed down all vaccination centres as it has run out of vaccines. The saffron party should help them get the stock from the Centre.”

District collector Rajesh Deshmukh, too, reiterated Salve’s comments, saying vaccines do not arrive on a day-to-day basis and as and when the Centre sends new stock, PCMC will also receive its share.

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Zilla Parishad CEO Ayush Prasad said in rural areas, vaccination will continue as they have about 20,000 vaccines left. As for the citizens of Pimpri-Chinchwad, Prasad said their centre at Aundh General Hospital will be operational on Friday. “Citizens of Pimpri-Chinchwad can get vaccinated here. The centre starts operations at 10 am,” he added.

Prasad informed that the state health department looks after vaccine supply and when they receive fresh stock, they provide it to PMC, PCMC and the rural areas.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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