Vaccine Politics: Centre Vs Maharashtra

On Wednesday countering Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope’s complaint on facilitating the state with more vaccine doses the Union I & B Minister Prakash Javdekar took to his Twitter profile saying “Maharashtra government should not play politics over vaccines”. He went on to give statistics on the doses allocated by the centre to the state.

“Here are the facts: Total number of COVID vaccines supplied to state till date 1, 06, 19,190; Consumption: 90, 53,523 (of which 6% wastage – over 5L); Vaccine in pipeline – 7, 43,280. Dosage available – nearly 23 lakhs”, Javadekar said on Twitter.

His subsequent tweet read “Central government replenishes more vaccines than what is needed for actual use.”

Notably, the NCP leader and Maharashtra state health Minister Rajesh Tope went on requesting the Central government to facilitate the state with more vaccine stocks to meet the inoculation of 6,00,000 beneficiaries a day. He went on to say that various vaccination centres were being shut due to a shortage of vaccines in the state amidst increasing cases of COVID 19.

In talks with reporters, the health minister said that Union Minister Prakash Javdekar guided us to rush the vaccination drive during the surge of COVID cases in the state. We took it as a challenge and rose our daily vaccination from 3, 00,000 to 4, 50,000 doses per day. However, we have faced a shortage of vaccines and therefore we needed to shut down many vaccination centres across the state as we were facing a scarcity of vaccines.

Earlier on the date, just after the complaint made by state health minister Rajesh Tope, the Mumbai city mayor, Kishori Pednekar went on reiterating and added that on April 6 they had 1,76,000 vaccines and it is reduced with the days amid rising corona cases. She further said that the state is facing a shortage of vaccines and if the same continues, they would not be able to provide a second dose of vaccines then.

Meanwhile, the Union health minister Dr. Harshvardhan retorted to the allegations made by the Maharashtra health minister and Mumbai city mayor reprimanding those allegations to be completely baseless.

He further said, “This is nothing but an attempt to divert attention from Maharashtra government’s repeated failures to control the spread of the pandemic. The inability of the Maharashtra government to act responsibly is beyond comprehension. To spread panic among the people is to compound the folly further.”

“Vaccine supplies are being monitored on a real-time basis, the state governments are being appraised regularly about it. Allegations of vaccine shortage are utterly baseless,” he added.

Harsh Vardhan criticized 2 states and a city viz Maharashtra, Punjab, and Delhi over poor vaccination coverage in the situation. He asserted some states ask for the vaccination to be open for all above 18, by this, we presume that the states have covered the frontline workers, healthcare workers, and senior citizens adequately but the reality is altogether very different.

Giving statistics of the vaccination in different states he said Maharashtra has jabbed 86% and 46% of the health workers with the first and second dose, respectively; Delhi has jabbed the health workers with 72% and 41% with first and second dose respectively, and Punjab has jabbed 64% and 27% of the health workers with the first and second dose of vaccines, respectively.

While other 10 states/UTs have given around 90% of the first dose to the health workers and 12 Indian states/UTs have given 60% second dose to the health workers, while only 25% of senior citizens are jabbed in Maharashtra, 30% and 13% are jabbed in Delhi and Punjab respectively as per the statistics recounted by Harsh Vardhan.

Also on Wednesday, Adar Poonawalla the CEO of SII Serum Institute of India in an interview with Business Standard said that they have successfully strived the grant of “a few thousand crores” from the government to double the production of Covishield. “If the funds come, we are ready to deliver double the quantity of vaccines within 2 months,” he said.

On the eve of the PM- CM meet, the launch of workplace vaccination centres across the country from April 11 was also announced.

However, if we are in a state of exporting vaccines worldwide and play a part of us for humanity, it is comprehended that the vaccines in the nation would not be in any negative scope that we can be deprived of it. Maharashtra is a state on the date which witnesses the highest COVID-19 cases in a day across the world. The situation in Maharashtra is not under the control of the state administration and to hide its inefficiency it is not apt to blame the centre for such allegations.

DISCLAIMER: This article reflects author’s view point. Goa Chronicle may or may not subscribe to views of the author