Two days after raising concerns before Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue of huge funds required for procuring COVID-19 vaccines for the 18+ age group population, chief ministers of many Opposition-ruled states have now decided to foot the cost of the same.
Rajasthan on Sunday announced that it will vaccinate its entire population free of cost, with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot saying the state will bear the cost of Rs 3,000 Cr for the exercise. “It would have been better if as per demand of the state governments, the Centre would have borne the cost of vaccinating the 18-45 age group like it did for the 45+ age group. This would not have disturbed the state’s budget,” Gehlot said in a statement. In Maharashtra, state minister Nawab Malik said there will be a decision soon on free vaccination for all by the state cabinet, a point that Aditya Thackeray also tweeted but later retracted saying one should wait for the recommendation of the empowered committee. Thackeray deleted his earlier tweet which had said, “Maharashtra government has decided to vaccinate its citizens free of cost as this is not something that we think as a choice, but a duty that we consider of utmost importance.”
“All states are under public pressure to offer the vaccine for free from their state budgets. If one state offers this, other states will have to do the same due to public demand. The liberty to directly buy the vaccine from the manufacturers – this is something that the state CMs had been consistently demanding for. Now that choice has been given to them even as the Centre will continue to supply them vaccines for free for the 45+ population,” a senior central government official told News18. As a pointer to the public pressure, the official pointed out how both the TMC and BJP had promised free vaccination in West Bengal.
In Punjab, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said his government was placing an order of 30 crore Covishield doses for vaccination of the 18-45 age group with directions to use the CM Covid Relief Fund for meeting the vaccine requirements of the poor. He, however, said that as per information received from the Centre, the delivery of the vaccines for 18-45 age group is not expected before May 15. “Punjab government will consider approaching AstraZeneca (India) directly to avail the lower price of Rs 162 per dose available to the global community,” the CM said. The Uttar Pradesh government, which has already announced free vaccination for all, said it had placed orders for one crore doses of Covishield and Covaxine to begin vaccinations.
Other states, which have announced free vaccination for all, include Assam, Bihar, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. While Serum Institute has said it will supply Covishield at Rs 400 per dose to state governments, Bharat Biotech has said it will charge states Rs 600 for each dose of Covaxin – much above the Rs 150 per dose at which the Centre has so far procure each dose of both the vaccines.
News18 had reported on April 23 that some chief ministers had raised before PM Modi the issue of funds to buy vaccines for the 18+ population. Gehlot told the prime minister that the states had not made any budget provisions for procuring vaccines after the Centre had allocated Rs 35,000 Cr for the same. Gehlot said that if states have to sustain the financial pressure of procuring the vaccines, it will have to cut the budget for social security and development programmes and the Centre should, hence, consider providing vaccines for all age groups to the states. The Punjab chief minister added that the state will have to incur an expense of Rs 1,000 Cr going by the price of Rs 400 per dose set by the Serum Institute of India and sought central government funding for this. Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan had told the prime minister he would need Rs 1,300 Cr for this job at a time when the state is already spending lot of money to save people’s lives.
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