“No vaccination, no ration campaign” causes outrage

The Chamarajanagar district administration has come under flak for allegedly linking COVID-19 vaccination with disbursal of pension and ration.

During an interaction with mediapersons recently, Deputy Commissioner M.R. Ravi said that a ‘No vaccination, no ration’ campaign would be launched on September 1 to ramp up vaccination coverage in the district.

However, authorities insisted that it was only an oral statement. The DC has not issued an official order to launch such a campaign and neither have the departments concerned made it mandatory for people to show vaccination certificates before collecting ration or pension, they pointed out.

But the issue triggered a political row with Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president D.K. Shivakumar tweeting: ‘The BJP government and Chamarajanagar administration have no shame. Their incompetence resulted in 36 deaths due to lack of oxygen. They want to punish those who don’t take vaccine, but they should first apologise for not arranging oxygen, vaccines, tests, compensation for deaths. The BJP Govt says it won’t give ration or pension to those not vaccinated. But are there enough vaccines? Have they persuaded people to take vaccines? Such denial of basic food and pension is illegal, unethical, unconstitutional’.

Congress working president and former MP R. Dhruvanarayan urged the government to rescind the order immediately.

However, district authorities said the question of rescinding the order does not arise as no such order had been issued in the first place.

A vaccination camp (Lasika Utsav) began in the district on August 27 and will end on September 3. Authorities said they have a target of vaccinating people in 170 villages sharing a border with Kerala and Tamil Nadu during the mela.