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A curious situation is emerging in Maharashtra where the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) has received eight bids for its global tender for the procurement of one crore Covid-19 vaccine doses, while a separate tender for five crore doses floated by the Maharashtra government has not received any response.
Of the eight potential suppliers for the MCGM tender, seven have shown interest in supplying the Russian Sputnik V and one bid is for “Pfizer/AstraZeneca”, a statement from MCGM said.
Additional Municipal Commissioner of MCGM, P Velrasu, told BusinessLine , out of seven suppliers of Sputnik V vaccine, one supplier has also offered Sputnik Light (single dose) vaccine. The eighth supplier is willing to supply Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccine, he said.
Recently, Pfizer and Moderna told Punjab and Delhi governments that they deal only with Central governments and do not negotiate with individual States.
Deadline extended to June 1
Meanwhile, MCGM administration decided to extend its deadline to June 1 as three new suppliers still have to submit some more documents, a media statement issued by MCGM said on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Maharashtra Health Minister, Rajesh Tope said the State Government has not received any response to its global tender for Covid vaccine procurement. An e-mail has also been sent for acquiring Sputnik-V vaccines, but a reply was awaited.
MCGM vax procurement
To supply the vaccine to MCGM, the administration published an expression of interest globally on May 12. Subsequently, five potential supplier proposals were received by May 18. However, an extension of this expression of interest was given to fulfil the documents in the proposal received. Accordingly, the term was extended till May 25; however, three more potential suppliers submitted proposals and they also need to supply certain additional documents.
The media statement said that it is especially important to examine the business relationship between suppliers who are willing to supply vaccines and companies that actually produce vaccines so that timely and smooth supply of vaccine can be ensured.
On May 24 and 25, extensive discussion with potential suppliers through video conferencing was held. As the deadline for expression of interest was coming to an end, three new proposals have been received. It is now mandatory to complete the documents by June 1, the statement explained.
All the proposals are being scrutinised by the municipal administration. As more proposals are received, it will be possible to complete all these procedures in a competitive and reasonable manner, the statement added.
Pfizer clarifies
Reacting to the MCGM announcement, a Pfizer spokesperson said: “Neither Pfizer Inc nor any of its affiliates globally, including in India, have authorised anyone to import/market/distribute the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. We continue to have ongoing discussions with the Government of India towards making our vaccine available for use nationally.”
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