By Rohit Vaid

New Delhi, Jul 15 (IANS): In a unique initiative to fight the Covid pandemic, global beverage major Coca-Cola's CSR arm plans to ferry over 1.45 lakh rural folks for vaccinations across India.

Besides transportation assistance, the Coca-Cola Foundation's initiative focuses to spread awareness, facilitate community participation in vaccination, and provide safety kits in 25 districts across 10 states.

Accordingly, Coca-Cola Foundation has funded the non-profit 'United Way Mumbai' for the initiative under its global initiative 'Stop the Spread'.

"We are hopeful that with collective effort and resilience by all, we will be able to steer ourselves out of these difficult times," said Saadia Madsbjerg, President of TCCF.

The unique initiative, entails facilitating rural folks in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Punjab, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Telangana, Delhi and Haryana with transportation assistance from their villages to a designated vaccination centre.

At the centre, the beneficiaries of this facility will then be subjected to a one-on-one health check-up, after which, they will be administered an anti-Covid shot.

More than 1.45 lakh people in over 4,400 communities and villages across the country will be provided with the transportation service for vaccinations.

Furthermore, the initiative aims to strengthen close to 440 vaccination centres in rural and urban India.

The initiative is being rolled-out in phases across states.

Notably, in Karnataka, transportation assistance for more than 20,000 members from rural communities across the state will be provided.

Similarly, in Maharashtra, 7,200 members from rural communities across the state will be provided with the transportation assistance.

India suffered from a resurgence in Covid cases.

However, a sharp decline in new infection rate along with accelerated vaccination drive has given hope for normalcy to return soon.