Start-Up Sector Playing Key Role In Vaccinating Bengaluru

Bengaluru, which had the highest number of active cases during the deadly second wave is racing to vaccinate a substantial percentage of its population ahead of the impending third wave. And in this city, private participation in the vaccination drive is playing a big role. One of the private platforms is ACT Grants - from the start-up ecosystem - which is working with the city's civic body on its vaccination drive.

ACT Co-Founder Prashant Prakash told NDTV that the group started in the first wave as a coalition of start-ups.

"The aim was to use start-ups' speed and execution capabilities to fight the pandemic," he said.

"In the second wave we started out with oxygenation which was the biggest challenge. We were able to organise more than 45,000 oxygen concentrators and cylinders across the country. Then we moved to home care and more recently we have been focusing on vaccination," he added.

Bengaluru was chosen as the pilot city for the group's mass vaccination plan.

"Bengaluru has a large health provider ecosystem. And other NGOs," Mr Prakash said on choosing the Karnataka capital.

With vaccines in short supply, the team knew it needed to prioritise who would receive the dose.

"We put together a steering committee of Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Irina Vittal and Gagandeep Kang. They gave us guidelines so that the short supply of vaccines would not hinder the effectiveness of what we could achieve," he said.

The focus was on low-income, possible high-density areas and also high occupational risk groups. Bengaluru has a division of seven to eight zones so the mostly densely populated wards within these zones were identified.

Vaccines cost money. So, who funded the thousands of vaccine doses that are being administered?

"This is where the whole philanthropy comes into the picture, he said. "Bengaluru is known to be a city with a new generation of philanthropists. The start-ups themselves have been influenced by these individuals and they have a very open mind in giving.

"We started this programme called Vaccinate and Donate, where some of the companies which had frontline workers like Swiggy, Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket - they wanted their workers to be vaccinated. We did that for a two to three-week period in May-June. They not only paid for vaccinating their employees and frontline, but also donated a lot of vaccines to the unorganised frontline," Mr Prakash adds.

So, what is the target?

"Bengaluru has about 95 to 99 lakh people who need to be vaccinated. We are up to 50 lakh people. Our goal is before August 15, can we get 90 to 95 per cent vaccinated. This coalition, plus the government's supply - we believe we will be able to get there," Mr Prakash told NDTV.

A big challenge does remain the hesitation of some people to come forward and take the vaccination. "I think this is going to be the challenge," Mr Prakash said. "I think we will get to about 70 to 75 lakh people. But I think the last 20-30%, there is going to be that hesitancy."

Work is on to identify the specific challenges.

"In the next two to three weeks we will start looking at religious biases, fake news, misinformation. And have specific, geographical, micro level strategies. We think that is really important to cover the last 15-20 lakh people in the city," he adds.