The central government has allowed private hospitals to operate 24X7 in the vaccination drive, but the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to wait and watch before keeping its centres functioning for the same period. The city also lacks adequate on-the-spot registration facilities at the vaccination centres and it has become a cumbersome task, especially for health officials and frontline workers to find the nearest such centre, if they reside in the island city.

While the civic body has allowed walk-ins without appointments at the 23-odd government and 13 private hospitals that have been newly added to the list, the facility to register on-the-spot is only available at five places, all in suburbs -the BKC Jumbo Centre, NESCO Jumbo Centre, Dahisar Jumbo Centre, Mulund Jumbo Centre and Seven Hills Hospital. To get vaccinated at other places, one has to be registered on the CoWIN portal.