The Calcutta Municipal Corporation’s drive to conduct antigen tests for Covid-19 will focus more on hawkers and traders, who get exposed to many people every day, than members of other professions once it opens testing centres, an official said.

The civic body has planned to set up permanent testing centres in each of the 16 boroughs. An official said there would be at least three centres in each borough for conducting the antigen test.

The first such centre was inaugurated inside the Roxy cinema building earlier this week. An official said hawkers of the Grand Arcade and other traders of the area would be asked to undergo tests at the centre.

The outgoing councillor of Ward 46, which covers the central Calcutta shopping hubs, is talking to the various traders associations and hawker unions, urging the members to get themselves tested at the centre.

Another centre will open in Ballygunge on Saturday. “After we open centres in the Ballygunge and Gariahat areas, traders and hawkers will be told that those with Covid-19 symptoms must get themselves tested at the earliest,” said a CMC official.

“A hawker selling wares on a footpath or a trader inside a market talks to multiple customers daily. If a trader contracts the virus from one of the customers, she or he might pass it on to many others. Chances of the virus spreading from such people are much more than those who are mostly staying at home. If a vegetable seller or a fish seller is infected, she or he can go on to infect many of the customers. Hawkers and other traders are our initial target for the antigen test,” the official said.

The CMC official said the plan was to conduct at least 100 antigen tests at each of the centres every day. The target is to conduct 1,600 tests across the city daily. “Each centre will remain open at least two days in a week,” the official said.

The centres will also collect swab samples for the RT-PCR test for Covid-19, the traditional and more confirmatory test for the coronavirus disease.