Assam Turns Poll Booths To Covid Vaccine Points To Cover Those Left Out

The idea is to identify those who have been left out or have forgotten to take their second dose.

In Assam, only 1.72 crore people -- about half the state's population -- have received even one dose of the Covid vaccine till now. To hasten the pace of the drive, at least in and around Guwahati, the government is improvising: turn polling booths into vaccination centres and using electoral rolls to identify those left out. The target is to cover over 200,000 people in the region. For instance, over 200 such facilities have already been converted in Kamrup metro district, where about 80 per cent of the 12 lakh beneficiaries have already been inoculated. Based on a survey using the voter lists, 'booth level officers', the local representatives of the Election Commission of India, have been identifying those who have slipped through. "From the survey, we found the 'left out' voters and we listed them out. We also helped collect their phone numbers. They were contacted after we gave the list to the Deputy Commissioner's office," Harendra Boro, a booth level officer, told NDTV.