Health Minister Banna Gupta on Thursday accused the NDA-led Centre of being prejudiced against the people of Jharkhand and politicising the distribution of vaccine among states for the mass immunisation programme against Covid-19 starting on May 1 for all adults. This practice, he said, may lead to delay in launching the immunisation programme for residents in the age bracket of 18 years to 44 years in the tribal state.
“The Centre has announced vaccination for all citizens in the age bracket of 18 years to 44 years from May 1, but the distribution process of vaccine doses is riddled with political stunts and vendetta,” Gupta said addressing media persons at National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) building in Ranchi. “We will not get the required vaccine doses until May 15,” he added.
Gupta claimed that the State demanded 25 lakh doses each of Covaxin and Covishield for the upcoming immunization programme, but the vaccine manufacturers refused to provide the required doses on time citing an advance booking of 12 crore vaccine doses by the Centre. The Centre, he said, has made advance booking of 10 crore vaccine doses with Bharat Biotech and 2 crore additional doses with Serum Institute – the two vaccine manufacturers in India.
“How will a developing State like Jharkhand vaccinate the 1.57 crore beneficiaries in this category if the Centre does not allow us to procure the doses that we require?” Gupta asked.
The State, he said, has already set up 2229 vaccination centres for the immunisation programme, but the process of vaccination may get affected due to unavailability of sufficient doses.
Gupta also slammed the Centre for its “biased” approach towards Jharkhand while providing life-saving drugs for treatment of Covid patients. The state, he said, has 2500 doses of Remdesivir at present and has sought 2000 extra doses from Assam.
“We need at least 4000 doses of Remdesivir injection every day, but the Centre has provided only 20,000 doses to us in the past 10 days,” the minister said. During the Annual Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman had allocated Rs.35,000 crore for vaccination, but the Centre was still demanding money from states for vaccines, Gupta alleged, claiming that the Centre’s policies were mounting added pressure on the states.
He accused the Centre of supplying vaccines to other countries, including Pakistan, to win appreciation from the international media at a time when it did not have sufficient vaccine doses to fulfil the demand of its own states.
Gupta sought the support of other states in helping Jharkhand fight the worst-ever wave of Covid-19, which has claimed several hundred lives and infected almost 1 lakh people in hardly a month. Jharkhand, he said, was providing medical oxygen to all the states irrespective of the party in power there, but the Centre was not following the same approach towards non-BJP ruled states.
