Bengaluru malls insist on Covid-19 vaccine certificates, to jab defaulters at the entrance

Abiding by the stringent Covid rules of the Karnataka government close on the heels of reporting Omicron variant cases in Bengaluru, several malls in the city on Saturday allowed only those with double vaccination to enter the premises.

While chaos prevailed at the entrance of a few malls in the morning hours, quick deployment of private security personnel and volunteers resolved the scenario by properly checking the vaccination certificates and allowing the general public into the mall area.

A spokesperson for Phoenix Marketcity said, “We are making sure anyone who enters the mall is fully vaccinated with both doses. Additional personnel have been deployed exclusively for monitoring purposes at the entrances. Signages pertaining to Covid protocols and cautionary measures have also been displayed across the mall.”

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BBMP Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta said that a written direction was issued to all the malls and shopping complexes to ensure that they verify vaccination certificates.

“This directive has to be enforced by the malls. The BBMP staff cannot enforce them. Hence, we have held discussions with all the stakeholders and asked them to follow the directive. In case there is any confusion, our staff will guide them,” he said.

Interestingly some of the malls in association with the BBMP had set up vaccination camps to vaccinate those who are still awaiting the second dose.

“Our zonal officials have set up vaccination sites at all the malls. Also, health officers will oversee if the malls are checking the vaccination certificates of all the visitors,” said Dr Trilok Chandra, BBMP Special Commissioner(Health).

The authorities at the malls said there is a higher level of awareness among people.

“Because of the high vaccination rate, most of the visitors were eligible to enter the malls. We also noticed that there is a high level of awareness among people even with respect to wearing masks and following Covid-appropriate Behaviour,” said Manoj Singh, Cluster Director of Nexus Malls (Forum Mall).

However, with these additional checks, visitors had to wait a little longer to enter the malls.

“Since it was the first day of enforcement, we faced a few challenges in terms of queues as customers took some time to download the certificates on their mobile phones. Apart from that, most of the customers are complying with the order,” said Sunil Munshi, AVP, Operations, Orion Malls.

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