Delhi's 1st drive-through Covid-19 vaccination centre closes, says 'unviable' after price cap

The first Covid-19 vaccination centre established by the Delhi government in association with Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital at Vegas Mall, Sector-14, Dwarka was inaugurated on May 26.

Delhi's first drive-through vaccination centre in Dwarka has decided to shut down its operations from Saturday as it became financially "unviable" after the Union government declared the price cap for the administration of vaccines against coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in private hospitals.

A medic inoculates the dose of the Covid-19 vaccine to a beneficiary during a drive-in vaccination centre at Vegas Mall, Dwarka in New Delhi. (ANI)

The vaccination centre established by the Delhi government in association with Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital at Vegas Mall, Sector-14, Dwarka was inaugurated on May 26.

"From today, we are stopping Delhi's first drive-through vaccination program which we ran successfully for the last 15 days and we actually wanted to run this for a longer time," Dr Kousar A Shah, who is the chief operating officer (COO) at Aakash Healthcare, said, reported ANI.

"However, the cap on vaccination administration charges has made it unviable for us. So, we had to stop this facility," Shah added, according to an ANI report.

Over 10,000 people received the vaccine doses at the centre so far, ANI quoted the officials of Aakash Healthcare as saying. The hospital was given the responsibility of the operations of the vaccination centre at Vegas Mall.

The vaccination centre located in south-west Delhi was only administering the Covishield vaccine. The fee for inoculation at the facility inside the mall was ₹1,000 per dose of Covishield shot and ₹1,400 for those getting vaccinated while sitting in their own vehicles.

The Union ministry of health and family welfare has capped the maximum service price per dose levied by private hospitals at ₹150 per dose, in a letter to all states and Union territories on Tuesday.

Delhi witnessed a sharp decline in the number of new Covid-19 cases on Friday as it registered 238 fresh infections and 24 fatalities, according to the state health bulletin. The total number of vaccinated beneficiaries reached 5,910,350 on Friday as more than 81,000 beneficiaries got inoculated in the past 24 hours, the data showed.