NEW DELHI: A parliamentary committee has noted that with less than 1% of the country’s population vaccinated against Covid-19 till mid-February, as per information shared with it by the home ministry, it would take “many years to vaccinate the whole population”.
While expressing concern over a large number of people missing the second dose of the vaccine, the panel asked for an attempt be made to cover maximum people as early as possible in the ongoing vaccination drive.
After the home ministry, while briefing the standing committee on home affairs last month on status of the Covid-vaccination drive in the country, told the panel that 98.46 lakh vaccine doses had been administered as on February 18, 2021, the committee recommended that all frontline health workers and corona warriors including Central armed police forces and state and Union territory police personnel receive the recommended doses of the vaccine as early as possible.
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On some people missing the second dose of the vaccine, the panel in its report laid in Parliament on Monday said it was a very serious issue as the virus was mutating and new variants of Covid-19 were being reported in different parts of the world.
MHA, on its part, told the committee that the ongoing vaccination drive was fastest in the world to achieve 1-7 million vaccinations and in terms of total number of vaccinations administered till February 18, India was at fourth position across the world despite starting around a month later than other countries.

The home ministry informed that regular reviews are being undertaken with the states and UTs for increasing the pace of vaccination drive and advisories have been issued to them on various operational aspects of Covid-19 vaccination.
Also, a communication strategy was being implemented at the national and state level to raise awareness about the safety, efficacy and immunogenicity of Covid-19 vaccines through prompt and consistent dissemination of factual information and to address misinformation related to it.
Among the other issues covered in the standing committee report was monitoring of glacial lake outburst flows (GLOFs) in view of the recent glacial outburst at Chamoli in Uttarakhand.
The Committee observed that the Himalayan region of Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand had young, fragile and sensitive mountains.
It recommended that an urgent assessment be made and organizations like Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, tasked to conduct glaciological studies and prepare glacial lake inventory for Himalayan region using remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS).
Besides, the concerned States should be sensitised by the MHA to place adequate early warning mechanism in every district.
The committee noted that excessive cutting of trees and use of dynamites on hills/mountains of the Himalayan region for roads, tunnels, dams and other developmental/infrastructural projects was weakening the surrounding hills and may be causing an avalanche, landslides, flash floods, et.
It recommended that the MHA coordinate with the concerned agencies to immediately ban the use of dynamites for developmental projects in the Himalayan region.

The committee expressed its disappointment over spending of only 27.42% of funds allocated to the UT of Ladakh in BE 2020-21. It asked MHA to coordinate with the UT administration to remove bottlenecks and ensure optimal utilisation of funds in the UT from ensuing year.
Seeking international air connectivity in UT of J&K, the committee suggested that to realise the real tourism potential of the UT, MHA take up the matter with civil aviation ministry to commence international commercial flights operations from Srinagar Airport at the earliest.
The committee noted that current housing satisfaction level of Delhi Police personnel was only 19.53%, with the personnel moving to adjoining Faridabad and Gurugram in the absence of proper accommodation in Delhi.
“It delays response in emergency situations,” the committee said and recommended that MHA make Delhi Police set yearly targets to increase number of accommodations for its personnel and adequate budgetary allocation be made for this purpose.