oppn parties The Centre And The States Must Both Learn From The Vaccine Fiasco

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The Centre And The States Must Both Learn From The Vaccine Fiasco

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-06-08 14:04:15

About the Author

Sunil Garodia 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

The Centre's course correction in the vaccine policy is welcome. Given the dynamics of procurement and pricing and the fact that due to low production, vaccines would have been always in short supply, it was always better for the Centre to be the lone buyer and negotiate better pricing on the strength of procuring millions of doses. It was also logical for Centre to procure the vaccines and provide it free to the states as it had earmarked Rs 35000cr for the purpose. It made the mistake of taking criticism of its centralized vaccine policy on the chin and tweaking it without giving a thought to the consequences it was aware would arise.

The Centre and the states are like a family. The Centre is the like the head and the states are like other members. All family members make demands on the head of the family at all times. It is upon the head to judiciously differentiate which demand can be acceded to and which has to be rejected. He or she takes flak but acts to protect the family's interests. In the case of India, the Centre rejects many demands of the states which they, and other experts and commentators, feel are legitimate and proper. At other times, though, it accedes to trivial demands. In the case of vaccines, the Centre should have realized that it would create a mess and that would impact the vaccination drive as well as jeopardize the fight against the virus.

It should have sat down with the states and should have explained to them the problems of pricing, supply and logistics that would arise if individual states were to negotiate vaccine supplies directly with the manufacturers. Would the manufacturers give preference to the orders of the Centre as it was a bigger buyer? Further, an order of 50cr doses would definitely fetch a better price than an order of 10cr doses and the one making the bigger order would be able to arm twist the manufacturers into accepting many other things like priority in supplies etc. If the Centre explained this to the states as well as put it in public domain, one is sure that the states would have veered around to its view and the so-called 'liberalization' of the vaccine policy would not have taken place. The head of the family, in this case the Centre, has to take tough decisions many times which make him or her unpopular, but ensure that it benefits the family. The Centre failed in its duty when it acceded to the unreasonable demand of the states to decentralize vaccine procurement. One hopes that the states too have learnt their lesson and would study things in greater details before making such unreasonable demands on the Centre. 

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