NEW DELHI: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kerjiwal on Sunday urged the Cente to allow states to develop a separate mobile application and mechanism for effective and smooth Covid vaccination drive. Kejriwal’s suggestion assumes significance amid reports of glitches being reported in the Co-WIN app. Flagging the shortage of Covid vaccination in the national capital, in a letter to Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, the CM said, “Delhi has around 92 lakh people in the 18-45 age group.
I urge you to direct Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech to increase their monthly supplies to Delhi to 60 lakh doses per month during May to July 2021…We have already developed infrastructure required. We are already vaccinating roughly one lakh people every day. We are increasing this capacity to roughly three lakh per day in the next few days.
Therefore, we will have the capacity to administer 90 lakh doses per month,” says his communiqué. Kejriwal also sought uniform pricing of the vaccine being distributed among private and government hospitals. Conveying his displeasure over short supply of Covid vaccines, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said that instead of fulfilling local demands, the Centre allowed export of the vaccine.
“If other countries such as Canada and the US gathered enough vaccines and prioritised vaccinating their citizens first, then why did India fall behind? No other nation, except for France, exported vaccines to other countries before fully vaccinating its own people. France only exported one lakh doses internationally after it accumulated doses for itself,” said Sisodia addressing a digital briefing. Sisodia said that while scientists in the country had developed two types of vaccine, we had still not been able to vaccinate our citizens in a swift manner, which is distressing.
“The Central Government is busy in exporting 6.5 crore doses of vaccines to 93 nations, so they can continue to maintain their image, so the world can appreciate the Central Government while it continues to pay lip service to its own people, its own citizens.
What was hoped from the Central Government was to manage the crisis in India, but they were too busy in their image management instead,” said the deputy CM. H e added that the Central government should learn from the international fraternity and vaccinate its citizens on priority. “Prioritise vaccinating all Indian citizens and make vaccines accessible for all. Once the vaccine is accessible to all, Delhi will ensure all citizens are vaccinated within three months,” he added.