The Centre has reiterated that as of May 2 it has provided 16.54 crore vaccine shots to states/UTs for free and more than 78 lakh doses are still available with them to be administered.

More than 56 lakh doses in addition will be received by the States for the next three days, an official statement said. Under the phase 3 vaccination strategy for the 18-44 age group, the Government would continue to procure its share of 50 per cent of the monthly central drugs laboratory or CDL cleared vaccines and would continue to make it available to the state governments totally free of cost as was being done earlier, it said.

On the issue of orders to vaccine manufacturers, the Government clarified that an advance payment of ₹1,732.5 crore has been made to Serum Institute of India as on April 28 for 11 crore doses of Covishield vaccine for May-July. As on date, as against the last order of 10 crore doses for supplies of Covishield vaccine, 8.744 crore doses have been delivered till May 3.

Meanwhile, it has placed an order for 5 crore Covaxin doses of Bharat Biotech against the advance payment of ₹787.5 crore for May-July. As on date against the last order of 2 crore doses of Covaxin vaccine, 0.8813 crore doses have been delivered till May 3, it added.

The statement comes against the backdrop of some media reports alleging that the fresh orders for Covid-19 vaccines were not placed by the Government. The government indicated towards a news report suggesting that the order placed with the two vaccine makers (100 million doses with SII and 20 million doses with Bharat Biotech) was in March 2021.

“Hence to say that fresh orders have not been placed by the Government of India is not correct,” it said in a statement.

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