Even as States complain of short supply of vaccines, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya clarified that there were enough stocks and that there was “vaccine mismanagement” by some States.

This is even as the Health Secretary pointed out instances of States and private vaccination centres not picking up, paying or administering the doses fast enough.

Doses provided

Earlier in the day, Mandaviya said in a series of tweets that the Centre had provided 11.46 crore vaccine doses to the States/UTs in June, which was further increased to 13.50 crore vaccine doses in July. This was possibly a response to former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi slamming the government saying many States/UTs, including Delhi and Odisha, are facing vaccine shortage.

“The Centre had already informed about the vaccine doses to be supplied to States on June 19. After that, on June 27 and July 13, they were informed in advance about the vaccine supply for each fortnight of July. That’s why States already know how many vaccines they will get and when.

“The reason for doing this was to ensure that the States could operate vaccination drive till district level without any hurdles,” Mandaviya tweeted.

Despite the Centre’s advance information, he said: “We are seeing mismanagement and long queues of people waiting for vaccine doses, then it is quite clear what is the root cause and who is behind this.”

“Those politicians who create stress and doubts in the minds of people need to do a self analysis. Have they distanced themselves so much from the administrative information that they are not aware about the advance details being given,” Mandaviya asked. Yesterday, Chidambaram had tweeted: “Vaccine shortage is a fact. Vaccine production is an exaggeration. Vaccine import is a mystery. Vaccinating the whole of the adult population by December 2021 is just an overstatement.”

Review meeting

Meanwhile, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan also held a review meeting with 15 States – Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Telangana, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal, Delhi, Punjab and Haryana – on the vaccine procurement by Private Covid Vaccination Centers (PCVC). Vaccine companies were also part of this meeting. Concerned at the slow pace of vaccination, Bhushan said “many PCVCs have not placed any indent for the earmarked quantum of vaccines”.

Further, he added that in many cases while the purchase order for vaccines had been placed with the State, the payment had not been made for the entire amount of indented vaccines.

In some cases, no payment has been made for the entire indented quantity, he said, advising them to ensure that the gap between the indented quantity and payment towards their procurement is reduced to zero.

In some States, the quantity of vaccines paid for has not been physically lifted by the States/PCVCs, he said. In cases where vaccine doses have been lifted by PCVCs, the actual administration of vaccines is seen to be less than the vaccine quantity lifted, he said, calling for the unutilised vaccine doses to be administered quickly.

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