Difficult For States To Acquire Vaccines, Centre Must Step In
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-05-24 14:07:02
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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With several vaccine manufacturers, Moderna and Pfizer in particular, refusing to quote a price against inquiries raised by several Indian states, it is now clear that the Centre's policy of letting the states acquire vaccines on their own is not going to work. It was an erroneous decision to begin with and one thinks it was taken more out of pique as the Centre was accused of centralizing control during the first wave of Covid-19. It was accused of taking lockdown decisions unilaterally without assessing local situations and controlling supplies. Hence, one thinks that from vaccines to oxygen and remdesivir and other drugs to medical equipment, the Centre is now following a hands-off policy and allowing states to fend for themselves, stepping in only when the situation goes out of control or the courts direct it to. Even in case of lockdowns, it has left it to the states to assess local conditions and then decide. It is following an advisory role and saying that intensive containment strategy would be best.
But there are other ways to handle the situation apart from total control or no control. There are certain things that the Centre has to handle. Vaccination, for instance. The Centre had appropriately set aside Rs 35000cr for the ambitious vaccination programme. That had given an idea that the government was ready to acquire the vaccines and provide them free to all eligible citizens. That would have been the best way both to acquire the vaccines speedily and at the optimum price and also to administer it. But somewhere down the line the vaccine policy was changed into a 50:50 policy which actually means neither here nor there. The vaccine programme has temporarily been derailed and is now moving at a snail's pace, mainly due to supply constraints. The Centre will have to revise the policy. It can make it 90:10 where it will acquire 90 percent of the vaccines at negotiated rates from the manufacturers and supply them to the states for administering free to the eligible population. The other 10 percent can be acquired by private hospitals and clinics and those who can pay for it can get jabbed there. Going ahead, that should be the policy that the Centre must follow to bring vaccination back on track and perhaps win the war against coronavirus.
