Even as Maharashtra’s Health Minister Rajesh Tope has expressed concerns over “vaccine shortage” and accused the Centre of “discrimination” against the state, NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday said that the Centre is cooperating with the state government in the ongoing pandemic.
Talking to reporters, Tope said the state has only two days of stock of Covid-19 vaccines, after which it will officially run out of vaccine doses for the immunisation drive. “Places like Satara, Sangli, Panvel have already stopped vaccination on Thursday, while Buldhana has only one day’s vaccine stock left. Many more districts are in line for closure of vaccination centres due to the shortage; we have only two more days of stock and if within two days, we don’t receive the allotted dosages, the vaccination drive in the state will come to a halt,” Tope said.
However, speaking on the issue, Pawar said, “The Central government is cooperating with the state government in these tough times of pandemic. We all have to come together and fight this menace; farmers, traders, workers and people should understand the current situation. The state and Centre both have to come together and find out a way to fight the pandemic.”
Tope has also blamed the Centre for “discrimination” against the state over allocation of Covid-19 vaccines and asked why the country’s worst-hit Covid-19 state is not being allocated vaccine doses proportionate to its requirements. Citing figures from the latest release order of vaccines from the Centre, Tope claimed that states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana etc have been given more vaccines in comparison with population and Covid-19 cases, while the Centre has increased Maharashtra’s vaccine allocation from 7 lakh to 17 lakh. Tope said that this is not enough as the state needs at least 40 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines per week. “Maharashtra has been given 7.5 lakh vaccine dosages which increased to 17 lakh, probably after my conversation with Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan. But why such discrimination when Uttar Pradesh was given 48 lakh doses, Madhya Pradesh 40 lakh, Gujarat 30 lakh and Haryana 24 lakh doses,” Tope asked.
Tope said: “I talked to Dr Harsh Vardhan… I raised the issue of discrimination with us. We have the most number of active patients, positivity rate and death with 12 crore population. Why are we given so few vaccines? Harsh Vardhanji assured me that corrections will be done soon. We are still waiting.”
Reacting to Tope’s claims, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan had on Wednesday lashed out at the Maharashtra government and accused it of “misgovernance” in tackling Covid-19, saying that it has followed an “utterly casual approach” and is putting the residents in danger “by letting people escape institutional quarantine mandate for the sake of their personal vasuli”.
In a statement, Vardhan said he had seen statements made by public representatives in Maharashtra about the shortage of vaccines and asserted that it was nothing but “an attempt to divert attention from Maharashtra government’s repeated failures to control the spread of pandemic”. The minister said the “lackadaisical attitude of the state government has singularly bogged down the entire country’s efforts to fight the virus” and the lack of efforts of the part of the state government “is now clearly visible and come to haunt us all”. He accused the MVA government in Maharashtra of focusing its energies on “playing politics and spreading lies to create panic”. WITH AGENCY INPUTS