Centre vs States vaccine war: 100% transparency only solution?

National

Amid acute shortage of vaccines in India, the Centre and states have found themselves on two polarising ends. A storm has erupted in non-BJP states over vaccine procurement. Jagan Mohan Reddy has become the latest CM of a non-BJP ruled state to send a letter to other CMs urging Centre to take charge of vaccine procurement. One of the primary reasons behind this is that there are no takers for the global tenders issued by these states.

Andhra CM Jagan Mohan Reddy has urged all CMs to speak in a single voice and urge Centre to take charge. Delhi Dy CM Manish Sisodia has accused the Centre of leaving states in a vulnerable position. Meanwhile, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan has said that it is unfortunate that Centre has absolved itself of duty to procure vaccines. Punjab, on the other hand, has demanded centralisation of vaccine procurement.

Hitting out at the states, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar on Friday said that till today, the Centre has provided about 22 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines to states for free of cost. The Punjab government had earlier demanded decentralisation of vaccination and now they are demanding to centralise it.

To solve this issue, NewsX has come up with an action plan. The seven steps include release daily data on vaccine production and distribution, find more ways for rapid increase in vaccine production, daily status update on new vaccine production facilities, clarity on production, stock and distribution of sputnik vaccine, clarity on status of other vaccines being made and the production and finally regular updates on procurement from foreign vaccine makers and stage update.