Criticising the Centre for its slow vaccination drive, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Monday that the drive was the longest and most mismanaged.
Referring to an advertisement published by several newspapers across the nation about the Central Government’s largest vaccination drive, he said: “The Central Government needs to understand that our people need vaccines not advertisements. If the Central Government had spent the money spent on advertisements to procure vaccines from abroad, the Covid crisis could have been managed better.”
At present, Delhi needs 2.30 crore doses to vaccinate the entire Capital but instead of this so-called free vaccination drive, the Central Government will provide only 15 lakh doses to Delhi in July, he said.
“In fact, the BJP-led Central Government had also put pressure on the Delhi Government officials to advertise this BJP toolkit. It is absolutely shameful that the Central Government is providing only 15 lakh vaccines for Delhi but putting pressure on our officials to publish these advertisements,” he added.
Speaking on the distribution of free vaccines by the Central Government to Delhi, Sisodia said, “If we look at the statistics right now, Delhi needed vaccines for a cumulative of 2.94 crore citizens, out of which 92 lakh are for citizens in the 18 plus age group and 57 lakh for citizens in the 45 plus age group.”
“We still need 2.30 crore doses to vaccinate all our citizens. When Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that Delhi needed 2.94 crore vaccines to inoculate citizens within three months, why did we receive only 57 lakh vaccines in total? Delhi still needs 2.30 crore doses of vaccines to inoculate all citizens and if we are going to receive only 15 lakh vaccines for next month, it means we need approximately 15-16 more months to vaccinate all here,” he said
“The vaccine is the only way to defeat the corona crisis in India. Many countries across the world prioritised vaccinating their citizens first. Whether it was purchasing vaccines from other nations or investing funds in vaccine manufacturing, several nations proved that vaccinating their citizens on a priority basis is significant to defeating the virus,” he added.
Around 65 lakh people have been vaccinated in Delhi, out of which, 49.38 lakh people have been given the first dose and 15.75 lakh people had been given both doses till Sunday.