Private Sector Must Be Involved In The Vaccination Drive
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-02-23 06:00:37
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
View all posts by this Author
Azim Premiji is right when he says that if the private sector is involved in the vaccination programme, more than 500 million citizens can be inoculated in two months. There is no denying the reach of the private sector as private hospitals, clinics and labs dot the country and reach even the smallest of towns. Hence, the government must involve the private sector at the earliest to speed up the vaccination drive. According to Premji, this will also help in bringing down the cost of vaccination. Other industrialists like Anand Mahindra and banker Uday Kotak have joined industry body CII in making a strong pitch for the involvement of the private sector in the vaccination drive.
Although India has managed to jab 1 crore people till now, all experts say that the faster a critical mass of the people are vaccinated, the better it will be to fight the spread of the virus. This is all the more important as India is witnessing a resurge in the spread of coronavirus as people have become lax and are not following health protocols. While the situation is alarming in Maharashtra, several other states have shown a rapid surge that is causing concern. Already, daily cases have jumped to more than 14000 per day, negating the gains of the past few months.
The government has said that it will consider involving the private sector when it starts vaccinating people in the 50-plus age bracket. That will be a good move. There are also suggestions from experts that once this group is administered the vaccine, the drive should be made walk-in instead of through registration on CoWin app. The facility jabbing the person should enter his details in the database. Experts say this will make people take the jab at their convenient time and it will increase the number of people who will take the jab. This is also a good suggestion and the government must work out the modalities. The faster we inoculate the maximum people, the better placed we will be to protect our citizens.
