Dipta Joshi

The Maharashtra state government will conduct a special vaccination drive for college students to ensure only fully vaccinated students attend college. Organised by the state’s health department and the higher and technical education department the pre-Diwali drive, ‘Mission Yuva Swasth Abhiyaan’ will be held from October 25 to November 2. The programme aims to cover all eligible students from the state’s 5000 higher education institutes.

Announcing the decision (Thursday, September 21) Uday Samant, the state’s higher and technical education minister said the drive would be the responsibility of the educational institutions and would be conducted within the institution’s premises itself. The required vaccine doses would be provided by the state’s health department, informed Maharashtra’s health minister Rajesh Tope.

College administrations have been asked to share a list of students who are yet to be vaccinated. Nearly 40 lakh students (aged above 18 years) attend the state’s 5000 higher education institutions including deemed universities, private universities, polytechnics, industrial training institutes (ITI’s) professional colleges and other institutions affiliated to it. Mission Yuva Swasth Abhiyaan’ will be open to college dropouts too who can visit nearby colleges for the vaccination.

Earlier the state had organised the Mission Kavach Kundal to vaccinate 15 lakh people every day before Dussehra. Maharashtra reported its lowest number of active cases since the last 17 months (1485) on Monday (October 18). With the trend of declining COVID cases continuing in the state, the government has been relaxing COVID related restrictions in phases. Colleges in the state were permitted to resume physical classes from October 20 onwards after remaining closed for over one-and-a-half years due to the pandemic. However, the government resolution stipulated only fully vaccinated students could attend classroom sessions.

Also read: Widespread Covid-19 vaccination before reopening schools not required: World Bank