States won’t have to pay for vaccines: PM

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday announced that the Union government was taking back the responsibility for procuring vaccines and distributing them to states, in response to a growing chorus of demands from the states, sharp criticism by the Supreme Court, and amid increasing concerns that supply shortages and the insistence of foreign vaccine makers that they would only deal with the Union government could derail India’s vaccine drive.

The Union government will continue to allow private hospitals to buy up to 25% of vaccines made in India, although it has capped the service charge they can levy on these at ₹150 a dose. The details of India’s new vaccine policy will be worked out in consultation with the states in the next two weeks, and it will be launched on June 21, Modi added.

The Union government will bear the cost of vaccinating everyone over the age of 18 years (the population currently eligible for vaccines), he said.

Some chief ministers welcomed the move. “The decision of free vaccination will decrease the financial burden of the state governments,” Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, too, praised the move.

The Delhi government said that if the Centre wanted, it could

have taken this decision a long time ago. “We express our gratitude to the Supreme Court. After its intervention, free vaccines will be available to all age groups across the country. If the central government wanted, it could have done this long ago. But due to the policies of the Centre, neither the states were able to buy the vaccines, nor the central government was giving it,” Delhi deputy CM Manish Sisodia said in a tweet.

In his address to the nation, the Prime Minister also defended his government’s vaccine policy, pointing out that it was “decentralised” only in response to demands from many states that they be allowed to manage the vaccine drive, and buy directly from both Indian and foreign manufacturers.

The Union government, therefore,

allowed this from May 1, he said, pointing out that health was a state subject.

In phases till then, the Union government had managed the vaccine drive for health care workers, frontline workers, people over the age of 60 years, and those over the age of 45 years but with co-morbid conditions that made them more vulnerable to Covid-19. But in response to the demand from the states, it decided to allow states to offer vaccinations to all starting May 1.

The Prime Minister’s speech comes ahead of a hearing in the Supreme Court on the Covid-19 situation and the state of vaccination in the country. In its previous hearing, the apex court said the Union government’s coronavirus vaccination policy that put the onus of giving doses to adults in the below-45 years age group entirely on states and private hospitals was “prima facie arbitrary and irrational”. It ordered the Union government last week to submit within two weeks “all relevant documents and file notings” on the thinking and process behind the strategy.

India bore the brunt of the second wave in May – it added 9 million cases, or 31.2% of its total cases to date, and saw 120,071 deaths, 34.4% of the total, in the month – and this, combined with the supply situation, made the vaccine drive chaotic.

States also found it impossible to deal with foreign manufacturers, many of whom wanted the Union government to provide them protection from lawsuits for adverse events (discussions on this are on).