A welcome shift in vaccine policy, but hurdles remain

The Union government’s decision to rework its “liberalised vaccine policy” and return to centralised procurement of vaccine doses for all people aged above 18 years is welcome. This is perhaps for the first time that the government has chosen to reverse its policy seeing its adverse impact on the people. It is no secret that the Supreme Court’s tough stance that it will have to subject the government decision to exclude a section of people from its vaccination policy to judicial review based on Articles 14 and 21 which guarantee the right to equality and the right to life, respectively, which led to this crucial policy change.

The court’s decision to call for files that led to the questionable decision must have rung alarm bells in the corridors of power, though the court has repeatedly assured the government that it had no plans to interfere with its executive functions. The court’s insistence that the government produce an account of the `35,000 crores earmarked in the 2021-22 Union Budget for vaccine purchase might, too, have forced the Centre’s hand. Credit must be given to the political Opposition, led by Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who first suggested that the Union government should procure the vaccine for the states, too, which was endorsed by several other chief ministers including Tamil Nadu’s M.K. Stalin and Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik.

The job is half done now, and the governments at the Centre and in the states have a lot of distance to cover to secure Indian people. We are into the sixth month of the “world’s largest vaccination programme” but have been able to fully inoculate only 3.3 per cent of the population; the figure for the share of population who have been given at least one dose is below 12 per cent. This is not a satisfactory pace by any reckoning. Given that a third wave could hit the children, too, and they also need to be given the jabs, the figures fall to pathetic lows when the number of children eligible for vaccination becomes part of the denominator. Added to this is the issue of digital divide, which the Supreme Court has flagged: This could deprive the most marginalised sections of society of vaccination. As per the government’s own records, there are about 13,000 villages in the country where there is not a single common service centre through which the people there can register themselves on the CoWin app.

The challenges are formidable but not insurmountable. The government has taken some baby steps to address them, which included the agreement it recently signed with Hyderabad-based Biological E. for the purchase of 30 crore doses of the vaccine which is in the advanced stages of clinical trials and the upfront payment of `1,500 crores. It is also getting Covaxin produced in more facilities. The government has now to prepare a workable schedule on the procurement and administration of the vaccine to meet the deadline of December 31 which it itself has fixed for the universal vaccination before it gets back to the Supreme Court on June 30 for the next hearing.

As per the government’s own records, there are about 13,000 villages in the country where there is not a single common service centre through which the people there can register themselves on the CoWin app