oppn parties Free Booster Doses For 75 Days Is A Welcome Move

News Snippets

  • For the first time ever, Mukesh Ambani buys a 29% stake in Gautam Adani's Mahan Energen, a subsidiary of Adani Power to source 500MW of electricity from the company's power plant in MP
  • Stocks continue to rise on Thursday - Sensex gains 639 points to 73635 and Nifty 203 points to 22326
  • Golf - Indian Open: 3 Indians at tied 14th as Joost Luiten takes the lead with a wonderful 7-under 65
  • IPL: RR beat DC by 12 runs as Riyan Parag (84 off just 45 balls) shines
  • SP drops two candidates owing allegiance to Azam Khan from Rampur and Moradabad
  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
  • 25 stocks, including SBI, will see same day trade settlements from today in the world's fastest settlement mode in both BSE and NSE
  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
Free Booster Doses For 75 Days Is A Welcome Move

By Linus Garg
First publised on 2022-07-13 16:30:52

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.

In a welcome move, the Centre has announced that on the occasion of Azadi Ka Amrit Kaal being celebrated for 75 years of Indian Independence, all adults will be given free Covid booster doses from 15th of July for 75 days, that is till 26th of September. Since the vaccination drive has lost steam and since free booster doses are currently being given to only senior citizens, frontline and healthcare workers, this is a good decision which will perhaps make people take the booster dose.

Ideally, the booster dose should have been free for all at government facilities, with an option for those who wished to pay for it to get jabbed at a private facility. But the government had allocated only Rs 5000cr in 2022-23 for jabs to 15-17-age-group and senior citizens, frontline and healthcare workers, with a promise to increase the allocation if needed. Since tax collections have improved, the government should have allocated Rs 10000cr more for vaccination this fiscal and that could have provided free booster doses to all adults at the reduced price at which the government gets the doses.

However, since that was not done, this limited window for booster doses should be used to bring the vaccination drive back on track. Statistics show that less than 31 percent of senior citizens have received the booster dose and, alarmingly, less than 1 percent in the age group of 18-59 has received it nationally. This needs to be changed and in these 75 days, the government should try to jab as many people as it can by launching a massive vaccination drive as it was done in the initial days.