Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) plans to vaccinate employees of those facilities before reopening hotels and restaurants in the city to dining establishments. At a meeting on Friday, the local deputy commissioners were asked to compile a list by June 7th of those establishments and workers who still need to be vaccinated in their areas.

The BMC said Friday it was working to formulate a plan for vaccinating restaurant and hotel workers. The move is to vaccinate employees aged 18-44 who work in this sector that is currently exposed in the city.

During lockdown restrictions since April this year, restaurants and hotels were allowed to continue offering delivery services, but were not added as a priority group to receive the vaccines.

“We are currently collecting data from hotels and restaurants and the number of employees who still need to be vaccinated. Depending on the number of employees, we reserve a contingent of vaccines in the community centers for employees on a certain day of the week. The plan will be finalized this week, ”said one ombudsman.

Each community official should submit the list of hotels and restaurants in their area to BMC headquarters by Monday evening or Tuesday morning.

The BMC is also looking into the possibility of vaccinating purchasing company employees.

Tumbling under the influence of the second wave of the pandemic, the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give priority to vaccinating their frontline workers.

In a letter to City Commissioner IS Chahal, the West Indies Hotel and Restaurant Association (HRAWI) had stated that the first and second bans involved over 20 lakh jobs and that the industry was closing in a loss of over 2,000 billion every month.

According to HRAWI, there are around 2,10,000 restaurants and 10,500 hotels in the state and the industry directly and indirectly generates around 30 lakh jobs.

Last month, the Kerala government added 32 groups to the newly created list of frontline workers who must be vaccinated as a priority, including hotel and restaurant staff and delivery staff.