Why is India's Covid vaccine drive faltering even now, asks Delhi Deputy CM Sisodia amid shortage
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New Delhi :Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia took to Twitter on Monday to raise the issue of shortage of Covid vaccines in the capital city. He wrote, "Vaccines have run out in Delhi again. The central government gives vaccines for a day or two and then we have to keep the centres closed for several days."
He went on to ask, "What is the Centre's constraint? Why is our country's vaccination programme faltering even after so many days?"
At the beginning of this month, a number of states including West Bengal, Delhi, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu flagged vaccine shortages. This comes after Prime Minister Modi announced centralising of the nation's vaccination programme in June.
As per the altered policy, the Centre took over the procurement of the 25 per cent vaccine doses that were initially assigned to states. The doses are now provided by the Centre to the states free of cost.
The then Union health minister Harsh Vardhan had dismissed the states' claims of shortage earlier this month. He had said, "If there are issues in states, it shows that they need to better plan their vaccination drives. Intra-state planning and logistics are the responsibility of the states. I request these leaders to desist from their shameless urge to play politics even in the midst of a pandemic."
Government data shows a decline in average daily vaccination against Covid since June 21, when the vaccination policy was centralised.According to data available on CoWIN, an average of 61.14 lakh vaccine doses were administered daily in the week from June 21-27. This number dropped to 41.92 lakh doses daily in the subsequent week from June 28-July 4.
