Most commuters refused bus rides are partially inoculated: Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited

PUNE: Ever since the PMPML made double vaccination against Covid a must for people to board its buses, around 80% of people disallowed to avail of its services were those producing partially inoculated certificates.
A senior official of the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) said close to 1 lakh people were not allowed to board its buses in the past five days.The official said though most of the people were carrying with them the vaccination certificates, the majority of those documents showed that the beneficiaries had received a single dose of the vaccine.
“This shows that quite a few people in Pune are yet to complete their full vaccination,” the official said.
The PMPML had started the drive on a “symbolic basis” from January 17, when its staffers approached the commuters and asked them if they were carrying the fully vaccinated certificates with them. The transport utility scaled up the drive from the following day, with its staffers checking the commuters’ vaccination status at depots and on-board the buses. In the first two days of the drive, the PMPML had disallowed around 13,000 people to board its buses.
PMPML traffic manager Dattatraya Zende told TOI that between 80,000 and 1 lakh people have been barred from boarding the buses for not having the double vaccinated certificates. “In accordance with the state government’s guidelines, public transportation is allowed only for the fully vaccinated people,” he said.
“In many cases, the commuters not allowed to board the buses are repeatedly requesting the transport utility to be considerate towards them. But we have to deny their requests till they get fully vaccinated,” Zende said.
Senior health department officials had on Monday said over one crore people across the state had delayed their second vaccination dose. Pune, Nashik, Mumbai, Thane and Nagpur had the highest number of beneficiaries, who missed their second dose of Covishield vaccine.