GUWAHATI, April 23: The Assam Real Estate and Infrastructure Developers’ Association (AREIDA) has urged the state government to provide mobile vaccination facilities at the construction sites to prevent overcrowding at the designated centres, especially with people above 18 years eligible for vaccination from May 1, 2021.
In a letter to the chief minister and health minister on Friday, AREIDA president P.K Sharma stated that members of the association would provide infrastructure required at the worksites where the vaccines could be transported in a medical van and administered by authorised medical personnel.
“We will facilitate the pre and post inoculation norms at the site, in consultation with the medical team. It would be possible to ensure that all workers are properly vaccinated if such an arrangement is made and this would effectively prevent the spread of the virus amongst a large segment of the population,” Sharma said.
Expressing concern at the alarming situation arising in the wake of the second wave of COVID-19 along with its mutant forms, the association, which deals with a large workforce, said it was imperative to prevent the spread of the virus among and through the construction workers.
During the lockdown last year, the AREIDA president said that the association members played an active role by contributing generously to the Aryoga Nidhi Fund, providing buildings for COVID treatment, supply of free ration to stranded construction workers, supply of PPE kits, etc.
“As the founder chairman and member of the Assam Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, I take the privilege to point out that several hundred crores of rupees contributed by employers like us for the welfare of construction workers are lying in the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess Fund. The cost of vaccination for the construction workers may be provided for from this cess fund,” Sharma wrote in the letter to the chief minister, who is also the chairman of the Assam Building and Other Construction Worker’s Welfare Board.
The AREIDA president stated that the association members were also educating the construction workers the importance of maintaining the COVID-19 protocols, both on and off work, as well as the importance of undergoing COVID tests and vaccination.