Mumbai, May 5 (PTI) A mega inoculation centre based in the BKC area of Mumbai witnessed chaotic scenes on Wednesday afternoon as a large number of beneficiaries thronged the site for getting jabs against COVID-19 since early morning. However, the civic body of Mumbai denied any "mismanagement" in handling the situation at BKC, a business district in the suburbs.

Officials said hundreds of beneficiaries, including senior citizens, thronged the BKC jumbo vaccine centre since early morning. In the afternoon, when the gates of the centre were opened, the crowd rushed to enter inside and the situation became chaotic between 1 and 2 pm.

According to the officials, a couple of women fell on the ground after a barricade broke in the melee but there was no report of injury caused to any beneficiaries.

Police intervened and controlled the situation, they said.

Activists said a lack of planning and mismanagement by the civic body led to the chaotic situation outside the BKC inoculation centre.

"The civic body should have started small vaccination centres instead of making large crowds to gather outside jumbo centres like the one at BKC," said Subhash Gupta, an activist from suburban Kurla.

However, civic officials said they had informed a day before that a walk-in at the centres is allowed only for second dose beneficiaries, while the first dose recipients have to register themselves and then come to the site.

Many beneficiaries came at the centre without registration, which led to the chaos, they said.

"There was no mismanagement at BKC," said a spokesperson of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

Citizens were requested to come after 12 pm as doses were to arrive in the morning, but they started crowding the centre since morning, he said.

He once the vaccine doses arrived at the BKC centre, everything fell in place and vaccination was carried out smoothly.

According to civic sources, on Wednesday huge crowds had assembled outside most of the government and civic-body run centres in Mumbai since early morning as vaccination for the first dose resumed after a gap of a few days.

They said Mumbai is facing a huge shortage of vaccines and hence last week the authorities had to suspend the inoculation drive for few days for specific group of beneficiaries. Fresh vaccine stocks arrived on Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani appealed to citizens not to crowd vaccination centres.

"Only the beneficiaries who have fixed their appointment for the first doses should visit the vaccination centres, whereas the beneficiaries of second dose can walk in for getting jabs," Kakani said.

As per BMC data, 25,20,634 jabs, including 5,40,000 second doses, have been administered till Wednesday evening. Of these, 33,807 doses were given during the day.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)