Center urges Delhi, Maharashtra and Punjab to speed up vaccination

- These states claim to lag behind the national average in terms of vaccinations

New delhi date. Thursday, April 8, 2021

On the one hand, the transmission of corona is increasing in the country, on the other hand, there is a rift between the central and state governments over vaccination. Several states, including Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, had raised the issue of vaccine shortage. Now the central government has sent letters to some states about the slow pace of vaccination. The Center has written to Punjab, Delhi and Maharashtra claiming that they are lagging behind the national average in terms of vaccinations.

Manohar Agnani of the Union Health Ministry has written a letter to the Principal Secretary of Punjab, Delhi, Maharashtra questioning the slow pace of vaccination. "Maharashtra has been given 1,06,19,190 doses of vaccine so far but only 90,53,523 doses have been used so far," he wrote to the Maharashtra secretary. In Maharashtra, the first dose has been administered to 85.95 per cent healthcare workers, while the second dose has affected only 41 per cent, well above the national average of 51 per cent. The Union Ministry of Health has asked for this to be rectified. Maharashtra also lags behind the national average in giving a second dose of vaccine to frontline workers.

Delhi has been given 23,70,710 doses of the vaccine out of which 18,70,662 have been used, including waste. Delhi also lags far behind the national average in giving first and second doses of vaccine to healthcare workers and frontline workers. If we talk about Punjab, 22,36,770 doses were sent out of which only 14,94,663 doses were used.

All the states will have to speed up vaccination, the Union Health Ministry wrote. Health workers, frontline workers are in dire need of vaccination as they are at the forefront of the fight against the growing case of corona.

In fact, some states, including Maharashtra, accused the Center of slow supply of vaccines. Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh have a shortage of vaccines and only 1-2 days of stock is left. But Union Minister Dr. Harshvardhan said that no state has a shortage of vaccines but they talk like this to hide their shortcomings.