New Delhi/Calcutta: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday (April 20) wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hitting out on the Centre’s new vaccine policy and terming it “hollow, without substance and a regrettable show” of evasion of accountability.
The central authorities on Monday introduced that everybody above 18 years of age shall be eligible to get vaccinated towards COVID-19 from May 1, liberalising the vaccination drive to permit states, non-public hospitals and industrial institutions to obtain the doses straight from producers.
“I am informed that the central government has announced the much-delayed universal vaccine policy on 19th April, 2021, which appears to be hollow, without substance and a regrettable show of evasion of responsibility by the central government at a time of crisis,” Banerjee mentioned within the letter.
She additionally reminded the prime minister that she had in a letter dated February 24, 2021 requested his intervention to permit West Bengal buy vaccines straight with state assets and give free vaccination to individuals of the state.
“No response was received from your end. Now when the number of cases in the second wave of COVID is spiralling like anything, the Centre has chosen to tactically indulge in empty rhetoric and shy away from its responsibility for making available vaccines to the people of the country,” Banerjee wrote.
She identified that the announcement made on Monday (April 19) didn’t tackle main points like guaranteeing high quality, efficacy, steady circulation of provide of required variety of doses by the producers and additionally the worth at which the vaccines are to be bought by the states.
“It is apprehended that the introduced policy may result in unscrupulous mechanisms available in the market, together with pricing of vaccines because it seems to be primarily based on market costs which can put the widespread individuals below big monetary burden.
“More importantly, the supply would also become very erratic because the vaccine manufacturers are hardly prepared to scale up their production capacities to the desired levels to meet the nationwide demand,” the West Bengal chief minister mentioned.
She added that the required vaccines usually are not presently obtainable available in the market and requested for steps to make sure their availability on the earliest.
“In sum, I would earnestly request you to kindly ensure a fair, transparent and credible vaccination policy addressing all the issues outlined above, which would enable the people of the country to get vaccines urgently at affordable prices as per current scale as applicable,” Banerjee mentioned.Â
