Maharashtra MoS (designated) Raghunath Kuchik has written a letter to Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan expressing concern over the varying prices of Covid vaccines in the country.
“The current pandemic has adversely affected the life of Indians across every strata of the society. Maharashtra in particular has borne the harshest brunt of the pandemic with cases skyrocketing. During these times, it is imperative that we unite across party lines and fight as a single community regardless of caste, creed, gender, and religion. Vaccine inoculation has to be the top priority and countries like America are showing significant improvement post-vaccination. This is not just true for America but across other nations such as UK, France and China. It is a saddening situation that we live in times where profiteering during the pandemic has become the new normal,” Kuchik said in the letter.
Raising questions on the Centre he pointed, “Cooperation between vaccine manufacturers and the government is paramount. I must bring it to your attention that the Centre seems to be failing at this. The price differentiation between the Centre and State is indicative that companies want to function at a profit and not on an at-cost-basis as the country is seeing one of the worst pandemic in post-Independence India. The problem does not lie with the manufacturers but with the Centre as well.”
Raghunath Kuchik, who’s also deputy leader of the Shiv Sena, also threw light on the pricing in other countries, showing the higher rates in India. He stated that a single dose of Covishield costs Rs 160 in the USA and EU. The SII-manufactured vaccine has different rates per dose in other countries such as South Africa (Rs 389), Saudi Arabia (Rs 389), Bangladesh (Rs 296), Brazil (Rs 233), and the United Kingdom (Rs 222).
Lastly, the veteran labour leader and advisor to the SII Employees’ Union urged the vaccine manufacturers to provide vaccines at Rs 150 to the Government of Maharashtra on humanitarian grounds. “At this stage, I would urge Shri Adar Poonawalla–CEO of Serum Institute of India– Shri Dr Krishna M. Ella–Chairman and MD of Bharat BioTech–and Smt. Suchitra Ella–Joint Managing Director of Bharat BioTech–to reduce the prices of vaccines for the Government of Maharashtra to ₹150 on humanitarian grounds so that the Government of Maharashtra helmed by Shri Uddhav Thackeray can serve the people to its fullest potential. It is during these trying times that profiteering and self-interest has to take the back seat and the well-being of the citizens should be the motivating factor to overcome the hurdle.”