Flagging once again the contentious issue of discrimination against Maharashtra in the allocation of Covid 19-related medicines and materials to it, the MVA Government on Thursday rooted for the allotment of 50,000 vials of Remdesivir as against 26,000 vials of the life saving injections earmarked to the state.
In a series of tweets put against the Centre over the short supply of Remdesivir vials to Maharashtra by the Centre, Minorities Affairs Minister and senior State NCP leader Nawab Malik said: “Central government has just released the allocation data of #Remdesvir injection to various states in our country. #Maharashtra requires 50,000 injections per day, which our government has been demanding. So far we have been receiving only 36,000 injections per day and now”.
“According to the new allotment, Maharashtra will receive only 26,000 #Remdesivir injections per day and this therefore will create further crisis in our state which has a high number of #Covid cases,” Malik said.
“We demand that the central government allot us our requirement of 50,000 injections per day and thus fulfill the requirements of the citizens of Maharashtra,” the minister added.
This is not for the first time that Malik has lambasted the Centre for its “discriminatory attitude” towards the Maharashtra government over the supply of Remdesivir vials and also threatened to seize the stocks of Remdesivir from the exporting firms and supply them to the needy people.
Reproducing a letter written by Food & Drugs Control Administration, Guijarat, asking an exporter to make available Remedesivir vials (meant for exports) for meeting Covid-19 needs in its state, Malik had tweeted on April 17: “Here is the another proof of step motherly treatment given by central government to #Maharashtra. This is the approval letter to one of the export companies to supply stock of #Remdesivir to the state of Gujarat Only. Can these double standards be explained?”
In one of the series of tweets put out on the issue, Malik had said then: “It is sad & shocking that when the Government of Maharashtra asked the 16 export companies for #Remdesivir, we were told that the Central Government has asked them not to supply the medicine to #Maharashtra. These companies were warned, if they did, their license would be cancelled”.
Charging that the Centre had set a “dangerous precedent” through its act of asking 16 exporting firms not to supply the medicine to Maharashtra, Malik had threatened the Modi government that “under the circumstances Maharashtra Government will have no choice but to seize the stock of Remdesiir from these exporters and supply it to the needy”.