Take Jab, Get Tomatoes: Chhattisgarh Town's Vaccine Incentive

India's nationwide Covid-19 inoculation drive is sparing no effort -- public appeals, awareness drives, and mass media campaigns -- to encourage people to get vaccinated to stay ahead of the pandemic curve. Amid all this, a municipality in Chhattisgarh has zeroed in on a fruit: tomatoes.

Authorities in the state's Bijapur district are offering tomatoes to citizens who get vaccinated, ANI reported. Women leaving medical centres in the municipality, possibly after getting their jabs, are seen carrying packets of the fruit, in photographs published by ANI.

And this barter system of sorts seems to be working, the news agency reported. 

Several users on Twitter were impressed with the idea, some saying that this could be emulated in other places.

The Central government has announced that vaccination will be open to all adults from May 1. Following a series of meetings by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it has said states can even buy doses directly from vaccine makers. The Centre would also allocate stocks from its share to states or Union Territories depending on the caseload in each of them.

PM Modi reiterated in his meetings that vaccination was the most reliable way forward. "The government has been working hard for over a year to ensure that maximum numbers of Indians are able to get the vaccine in the shortest possible time," he said.

With over 2.59 lakh new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, the disease's onslaught continues across India, which, at 1.53 crore, is second only to the US in terms of overall infections.