With right effort before 3rd wave, we can go ahead of present status; now, 12% population has received one dose, 4% second dose
It is essential that public policy should be based on principles like justice and fairness and the current vaccine policy must not be an exception. However, after taking suo motu cognisance of the Covid-19 situation in India, the Supreme Court on May 31 termed the vaccine policy as “arbitrary and irrational”.
The Bench of Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice L Nageswara Rao and Justice Ravindra Bhat expressed that the vaccination policy, as it solely depends on the online registration for vaccination, could have serious implications on the fundamental right to equality as regards access to vaccine and shall ultimately affect the right to health of persons.
Passing an observation about the economic burden that the need of access to internet shall put on persons living below poverty-line, the court remarked, “The monthly income of persons living below the poverty line in urban areas and rural areas is Rs 1,316 and Rs 896, respectively. However, to access internet data services, a minimum tariff plan would cost around Rs 49, which includes 1 GB data every 28 days.
This would constitute 4-5% of the month’s income of such persons accessing data.”
In this context, the court also relied on the annual report of Common Service Centres (CSC) for 2019-20 published by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, a report of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and observed, “It is clear from the above statistics that there exists a digital divide in India, particularly between the rural and urban areas.
The extent of the advances made in improving digital literacy and digital access falls short of penetrating the majority of the population in the country. Serious issues of the availability of bandwidth and connectivity pose further challenges to digital penetration.” This means the court acknowledged the disparity in access to the vaccine that the CoWin portal (online registration portal) shall further aggravate.
The court has also rightly pointed out the fact that the online registration system is potentially infirm as a matter of policy because even the digitally literate find it difficult to find vaccination slots through the CoWIN portal.
Hence, the court appeared more inclined towards allowing on-site registration, in order to make the process more accessible, mainly by designating specific vaccination centres for on-site registration of persons between 18 and 44 years and prioritising those with comorbidities, disabilities, or other socioeconomic vulnerabilities.
The court seemed to be observing in line with the Kerala and Tamil Nadu models of prioritising individuals with comorbidities in the vaccination drive meant for the age group of the 18-44.
The court further directed for making CoWIN platform and other IT applications like Aarogya Setu available in regional languages and make it accessible to persons with visual disabilities.
The court which appeared quite candid on the issue noted the inherent flaw in the vaccine distribution policy since the Liberalised Vaccination Policy of the Union Government prescribes a quota of 50:25:25 for the 18-44 age group and has assigned 50% of the vaccines for the Union Government, 25% for the States and Union Territory and 25% for private hospitals.
The court was critical about the fact that the States and private hospitals both have just 25% of the quota, which is “extremely disproportionate and not in touch with societal realities”.
The court observed as such because a large number of people who are not financially well-off, will in no case be able to afford the required two doses of the jab from private hospitals.
The court further observed, “If state/UT governments are to bear the burden of vaccinating a majority of the persons in their states/UTs, the quota available to the private hospitals must be reduced.” The court found the vaccine policy to be not passing the muster from the aspect of any known economic theory or model or in cohesion with the principles of equity or competition.
Besides, prima facie, the policy appears to be rather whimsical because there isn’t anything to substantiate that the States have aspired to procure the vaccine themselves, but rather various States have urged the Centre to adhere to the settled policy of immunisation, of procurement by the Centre.
In India, we have a sound universal immunisation policy with well-demarcated boundaries between the Centre and the States, which the world envies and this shouldn’t be in any case sabotaged by lobbying of private hospitals and pharma industry. Additionally, we should ensure centralised procurement so as to expedite placing of orders and accessing vaccines and also need to ensure that no black-marketing, siphoning, etc., happen and allow CoWin portal to be one of the avenues of registration but not the sole avenue.
If we put in the right effort much before the third wave, we can go well ahead of the present status, where an estimated 12% population has received one dose and about 4% the second dose of the vaccine.
(The writer is a lawyer and public policy expert and a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law and Media Studies at School of Mass Communication, KIIT University. He can be reached at sjyotiranjan3@gmail.com.)