“We have the most active cases here, so why are we being given less vaccines?” Rajesh Tope said he asked Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan
Vaccination remains an important weapon in the war against the coronavirus. Meanwhile, many states are expressing concern over the lack of vaccine stock and are constantly appealing to the Centre to provide the vaccine. But the matter has now reached the charges and counter and the Maharashtra and Central Government have started seeing rages about the vaccine. The Health Minister of Maharashtra has accused the Modi government of discriminating against the state over the vaccine. He said that the Centre is supplying less than the required vaccine stock, while states like Gujarat and UP are getting more vaccine doses than Maharashtra according to the population. He clarified that there is only two days of vaccine stock left with Maharashtra.
Referring to the data regarding which state has received how many vaccine doses, , Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope said that so far Maharashtra has been given only 7.5 lakh doses of Coronavirus vaccine per week. While Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana etc. have been given more vaccines than Maharashtra. Talking to news agency ANI, Health Minister Rajesh Tope said, “The population of Gujarat is half of Maharashtra. Yet Gujarat is getting more vaccines.”
According to the latest release order of vaccines from Centre, Maharashtra has been given 7.5 lakh vaccine dosages only. While Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana etc have been given far more vaccines than Maharashtra: Rajesh Tope, State Health Minister pic.twitter.com/DxnDJTnkwd
— ANI (@ANI) April 8, 2021
He further said, “I have just been told immediately that the Centre has increased the number of vaccine doses from 7 lakhs to 17 lakhs. Yet we need a dose of 4 million vaccines in a week and according to this, it is still very low and 17 lakh is not enough for us.” He further said that the state wants at least 4 million doses of the Coronavirus vaccine every week. “Instead of supplying vaccines to other countries, they should supply them in our own states. The Centre is helping us but not helping in the way it should be,” Tope said.
On Thursday, the Health Minister said that vaccination has been stopped in Satara, Sangli and Panvel. There are many districts now where vaccination has been brought to a standstill due to lack of vaccines. Tope criticizing the Centre asked how can fewer doses of vaccine be given in the state which is reporting most of the coronavirus cases. “I have spoken to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and raised this issue in front of him and told him that we are being discriminated against. We have the most active cases here, so why are we being given less vaccine?” Rajesh Tope said.
Instead of pointing their fingers at the Central Govt. & find faults at its Vaccination Policy, few State Govt. better look inward & check whether or not they have taken all the steps to efficiently deal with the pandemic.
Read this insightful statement by @DrHarshvardhan ji. pic.twitter.com/OsvwEDktoW— Sunil Deodhar (@Sunil_Deodhar) April 7, 2021
He further said that Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has assured him that this will be rectified soon. Earlier on Tuesday, Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope sounded SOS on vaccine shortage in the state. On the other hand, NCP leader Supriya Sule also claimed that more than a hundred vaccination centres in Pune have been closed simply because vaccines are not available there. Vaccination has been stopped in Satara, Maharashtra, following vaccine shortage.
Maharashtra “singularly bogged down” India’s Covid-19 Efforts: Dr Harsh Vardhan
On the other hand, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan retorted saying that the comments made by the Maharashtra minister were “Deplorable”. He also accused the state government of trying to hide their failure. The minister rubbished the Maharashtra government’s claim of shortage of vaccines as “utterly baseless”, and said the “lackadaisical” attitude of the state government has “singularly bogged down” the entire country’s efforts to fight the virus.
“The inability of the Maharashtra government to act responsibly is beyond comprehension. To spread panic among the people is to compound the folly further. Vaccine supplies are being monitored on a real-time basis, and state governments are being apprised regularly about it. Allegations of vaccine shortage are utterly baseless,” he said.
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