Chandigarh, May 7 (IANS): Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday asked officials concerned to prepare for vaccinating priority groups in the 18-45 years category in government hospitals from Monday, as the state was expecting 1 lakh doses to come from the Serum Institute of India (SII) over the weekend.

The vaccination of priority groups identified by the state government for Phase 3 should start as soon as the doses arrive, he said.

The state government has identified construction workers, teachers, government employees and those with co-morbidities as high-risk individuals for the priority vaccination.

The Chief Minister, who was chairing a virtual Covid review meeting, directed all government employees, except those with medical problems, to get vaccinated.

While the Labour Department will coordinate vaccination of construction workers and their families, to be funded by the BOCWWB, the Deputy Commissioners have been asked to coordinate vaccination of government employees.

Vaccination of co-morbid categories will also be planned by the Deputy Commissioners, with only advance registration and slotting of vaccination site to be allowed.

The state had ordered 30 lakh vaccine doses from the SII for the Phase 3 vaccination, and the Centre has now allocated 3.30 lakh against this order to Punjab for this month.

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister has directed the Chief Secretary to explore utilisation of some component of the state's World Bank loan for purchase of 10,000 oxygen concentrators, along with tankers and oxygen plants as well as vaccines.

He also expressed gratitude to the various organisations that were sending aid to the state to support its fight against the second deadly wave of the pandemic.

Amarinder Singh informed the meeting that besides the Tata Group, which was sending 500 oxygen concentrators, an additional 200 concentrators were being sent by the Tata Memorial Hospital also.