Transport dept plans to vaccinate all employees above 45 yrs in 2 weeks

“We issued the circular with a good intention but some of them are citing co-morbidities to take the jab. For them, we are giving an option. They can take the vaccine after undergoing necessary tests,” Samayamoorthy told reporters after inspecting the COVID-19 vaccine camp at Pallavan House.

He said that there are 1.2 lakh employees, including drivers, conductors and technical staffs in the eight-state transport undertakings. Of them, about 70,000 employees are over the age of 45. “We began the vaccination drive for the employees in the March first week. As of Tuesday, we have vaccinated 37 per cent of the employees (25, 459). We have given priority to the drivers and conductors in the drive. If they get infected, it could affect 400 to 500 passengers travelling on a bus in a day,” he said, adding that they are aiming to vaccinate all the employees above 45 years in the next two weeks.

When asked what was the revenue loss for the corporation owing operation of less number of buses, he said on average they suffer a revenue loss of Rs 12 crore to Rs 15 crore a day. He said that after the implementation of the night curfew, the corporations operated 16,284 buses on Tuesday, including 2,790 buses of Metropolitan Transport Corporation and 345 buses by the State Express Transport Corporation. “Night curfew mainly impacted the SETC, which operates over 85 per cent of the buses during the night time. Other corporations end their bus services by 10 pm to 11 pm usually. For the benefit of the passengers, we have rescheduled the bus services to the morning,” he said.