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‘It’s clear there is shortage of vaccines in many states’: Gehlot
“The central government should clearly state the lack of vaccine in public,” Gehlot said in a statement.
Countering the Central government’s claim of no shortage of Covid-19 vaccine in the country, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Friday issued a statement and demanded that the Centre clarify the status of vaccine dosages in public.
“In many states, the unavailability of the vaccine across vaccination centres has been reported. In such a situation, the central government should clearly state the lack of vaccine in public. No politics is being done in the work of vaccination but it is clear from the facts that there is a shortage of vaccines in many states. The central government should clarify the status of vaccine dosages in public,” the chief minister stated.
Gehlot said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for celebrating ‘Teeka Utsav’ from Jyotiba Phule Jayanti on April 11 to Ambedkar Jayanti on April 14 but the vaccine is not available in the states.
Gehlot said that Union ministers Amit Shah and Ravi Shankar Prasad have made factually false claims by saying there is no shortage of vaccines. The BJP was quick to react with spokesperson and MLA Ram Lal Sharma saying that the statements by Shah and Ravi Shankar Prasad are based on facts. “The GoI has never denied providing vaccination to states, rather has been the first to ask and fulfil requirements,” Sharma stated.
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In the statement, Gehlot said Rajasthan has been a pioneer in Covid-19 management and vaccination from the beginning and that the state leads among all states in the vaccination of people above 60 years of age.
“The central government has proposed the next consignment of 3.83 lakh doses of vaccine on April 12. Due to this, vaccination work will have to be stopped in many districts in Rajasthan tomorrow. The 3.83 lakh dosages stock will not last more than one day,” the CM said.
Rajasthan received 1,07,40,860 Covid-19 vaccine doses from the Central government till April 6. Of these, 2,15,180 vaccines have been made available to the Army; 91,55,370 dosages have been used for the vaccination drive till April 8. About 4,34,888 dosages were damaged, which is less than half of the 10% limit allowed by the central government.
On April 8, around 4.65 lakh people were vaccinated, which was 5.81 lakh on April 7; 4.8 lakh on April 6; and 5.4 lakh vaccine doses were placed on April 5. On the morning of April 9, there were about 9.70 lakh vaccine dosages left in the state - an average of 5.18 lakh vaccines are being administered daily in Rajasthan, as per the official state data. After the completion of today’s vaccination, there are only about 5 lakh vaccine doses left in the state which are insufficient for further vaccination, Gehlot added.
As per a media report published on April 8, Andhra Pradesh currently has 1.2 days of doses are left. Bihar has 1.6 days of doses left, Uttar Pradesh has stock that can run till about 2.5 days, 2.9 days of vaccine stock is left in Uttarakhand while 3.2 days of vaccine supply remains in Odisha, 3.5 days in Madhya Pradesh and 3.8 days in Maharashtra.
