Time to take vaccine drive to doors of people, Modi tells officials

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday (November 3) said India’s COVID-19 vaccination drive needed to be taken door-to-door and asked officials of districts having low inoculation to adopt innovative ways to boost the campaign. 

Modi made the remarks at a meeting, held via video conferencing, with magistrates of more than 40 districts having low vaccination coverage. 

Referring to his recent meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican City, the prime minister urged the officials to take the help of local religious leaders to spread awareness about vaccines and fight rumours. 

Also read: Modi meets Pope at Vatican, invites him to India

“So far you’ve been working to take people to vaccination centres, now it’s time to reach every house and work with ‘har ghar dastak’ campaign,” he said. 

“Ensure that the first dose is given to unvaccinated people, but also give equal attention to second dose.” 

The districts in focus at the meeting were those with less than 50 per cent coverage of the first dose and low coverage of the second dose. 

The 40 districts are spread across Jharkhand, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Meghalaya, among other states, according to the Prime Minister’s Office. 

Chief ministers of the states, including Maharashtra’s Uddhav Thackrey and Chhattisgarh’s Bhupesh Baghel, were present at the meeting. 

Modi held the meeting immediately upon his return from the G20 and the COP26 meetings.