Centre’s vaccine policy flawed, says Harish Rao

The Finance Minister says Union govt must permit States to procure vaccines from foreign countries

Siddipet: Finance Minister T Harish Rao said that Centre was neither allowing the States to procure vaccines from industries nor was coming forward to supply the jabs on its own to States.

Stating that the existing guidelines were not allowing Telangana to purchase the Covid-19 vaccines from industries based in the State, the Minister said the Union government was not even permitting the State to purchase them from foreign companies.

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Highlighting flaws in Centre’s vaccine procurement policy, he said that the Union government was trying to blame the States for its errors. Demanding the Centre to permit the States to procure the vaccines from foreign countries, Rao said the Telangana government had given Rs 100 crore in advance to various industries to procure Covaxin and Covishield so far.

Since the Centre has stipulated the vaccine distribution to States, the Minister said that the companies, which are producing the vaccine in Telangana, could not supply enough vaccine doses to the State. Demanding the Centre to liberalise the vaccine procurement to help the States to complete immunisation soon, Rao said that the priority of vaccine procurement must rest with the States.

Stating that the Telangana government is all geared up to fight coronavirus, the Minister said that they would fight the third wave more efficiently. “The door-to-door survey in the State helped us to prevent further spread of the virus, ” he said.

As part of their efforts to contain the spread of the virus, he said that the State government had decided to vaccinate 8.50 lakh people from high risk groups in 13 municipal corporations and 129 municipalities across the State. The high risk groups include vendors of fruits, vegetables, shopkeepers in wine shops and bars, servants in hotels, people working at burial grounds and others.

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