Eversince the breakout of the pandemic, the Prime Minister has every now and then has made national broadcasts in order to motivate and morally support the citizens during the time of utmost crisis. On Monday, 7th June, 2021, in his ninth national broadcast, Modi announced major changes in the vaccination policy.
India recorded 86,498 new cases in the 24 hours ending 8 am Tuesday, taking the country’s total infections to over 2.89 crore. This is the lowest spike of daily cases in 66 days. This is also the first time in over 2 months that the cases have fallen below the 1 lakh mark. Active cases further declined to over 13 lakh and over 2.73 crore people recovered after testing positive. With 2,123 new deaths, the toll is now at 3,51,309.
Following the drop in the number of covid infected cases, many states are preparing for the unlock procedure, also, a few states have provided relaxation in the COVID-19 lockdown guidelines. States and Union Territories like Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu are preparing for the unlock as the number of cases tremendously fell with a part of vaccinated population.
The Prime Minister declared on Monday in the National Broadcast that the centre would provide free vaccines to states for all citizens over 18 years from June 21. This scheme is likely to cost the exchequer an additional Rs 15,000 crore compared with the Budget allocation of Rs 35,000 crore. “It is too early to give a correct estimate with multiple suppliers and different prices. But the rough estimate is total expenditure for vaccines for this year may be Rs 45,000-50,000 crore. In the Budget, we had provided Rs 35,000 crore, and of this, the government has paid out about Rs 5,000 crore,” a senior government official told. With the Central government assuming the full cost of vaccination, states will not have to make extra provision for this in their budgets, the official said.
As per the new guidelines, “Government of India will procure 75% of the vaccines being produced by the manufacturers in the country. The vaccines procured will continue to be provided free of cost to States/UTs as has been the case from the
commencement of the National Vaccination Programme. These doses will be administered by the States/UTs free of cost to all citizens as per priority through Government Vaccination Centres.” “The CoWIN platform provides every citizen the facility of conveniently and safely pre-booking vaccination appointments. All government and private vaccination centers would also provide onsite registration facility, available both for individuals as well as groups of individuals, for which detailed procedure is to be finalized and published by States/UTs, in order to minimize any inconvenience to citizens,” said the guidelines.
Another highlight of the revised guidelines is “to promote the spirit of “Lok Kalyan”, use of non-transferable Electronic Vouchers which can be redeemed at private vaccination centers, will be encouraged. This would enable people to financially support vaccination of Economically Weaker Sections at private vaccination centres.” This step will immensely help the financially challenged class to get inoculated. The sources also indicated that the government is no longer counting on foreign vaccines to meet its vaccine needs.
“Our programme of procurement is centred around Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute and the new Bio-E; we will be able to supply vaccines for the substantial population from these vaccines,” sources said.
Talks with Pfizer and Moderna are reportedly stuck on the indemnity demand by the vaccine makers and their insistence that disputes in India related to their vaccines be taken up in US courts only.
“At present Moderna has no plan to enter till January next year,” said Finance Ministry sources.
Besides Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Serum Institute of India’s Covishield, Russia’s Sputnik V has been cleared for use in the country.
