Opp. letter key first step govt must take on board

Leaders of 12 Opposition parties have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that his government rework its vaccination policy and announce a universal free vaccination programme against Covid-19 and provide immediate financial relief to the people who have been hit by the second wave of the pandemic. The Union government must procure vaccines centrally from all available sources for the purpose and fully spend the budgetary allocation of `35,000 crores for vaccination and the money in the PM-Cares Fund in the fight against the pandemic, they said.

India is now witnessing the more fatal second wave of the pandemic and is left with no option but to declare an all-out war against the coronavirus. The steps the Opposition has listed invariably could be part of the strategy even an expert would lay out. On the other hand, the vaccine policy the government now follows is deeply flawed: It has left the job to the state governments and the private sector to source doses from Indian or foreign manufacturers to inoculate people aged between 18 and 45 years. The government has also given the vaccine manufacturers the freedom to fix the price of the life-saving vaccine. These are not steps any government would dare take in the face of a pandemic. The government has also faced uncomfortable questions from various high courts and the Supreme Court on the question of availability of vaccines, oxygen and life-saving drugs.

The government must see the Opposition leaders’ letter to the Prime Minister as an invitation to open a joint front in the war against the virus. The government now says the country will get 216 crore doses by December-end. This is a welcome announcement as the quantity is enough to inoculate all the eligible persons in this country. With an assured supply of the doses, the government must now set a practical deadline for vaccinating at least 70 per cent of the population which, experts say, is a necessary condition to attain herd immunity, and roll out a programme with definite milestones. The state governments and the private sector can be drafted for the success of the mission. The programme should work in a reverse engineering mode and ensure that every bottleneck is cleared.

The Opposition has called for the postponement of the Grand Vista project as well as scrapping of the three laws that would govern the agriculture sector in this country. We find these demands are a digression. This nation has far too many issues left unaddressed for centuries, but the challenge the virus poses eclipses them all.

The nation is going through one of the most difficult phases in its history, and it’s time all the people joined together and fought off the enemy, a microorganism, as one man. Shorn of the political points in it and the rhetoric, the Opposition leaders’ letter can be seen as a first step. The government should drop the recalcitrant attitude it has shown towards the earlier Opposition positions and instead take this as an opportunity to work together to save the nation from further devastation.

The government must see the Opposition leaders’ letter to the Prime Minister as an invitation to open a joint front in the war against the virus