Maharashtra’s vaccine wastage 0.22%: Cong demands apology from Javadekar

After the figures released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare revealed that Maharashtra’s rate of vaccine wastage was one of the lowest, the Maharashtra Congress general secretary and spokesperson Sachin Sawant demanded an apology from the Union minister Prakash Javadekar over his claims that the state wasted more than 500,000 vaccines

After the figures released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare revealed that Maharashtra’s rate of vaccine wastage was one of the lowest, the Maharashtra Congress general secretary and spokesperson Sachin Sawant demanded an apology from the Union minister Prakash Javadekar over his claims that the state wasted more than 500,000 vaccines.

HT Image

Maharashtra’s vaccine wastage rate has dropped to 0.22% while some other states have reported it as high as 7-8%.

In its press release on Monday, the Union ministry stated that out of 16.36 million doses of vaccines supplied to Maharashtra, the wastage was 0.22%. Against it, other states and Union territories like Haryana (5.72%), Assam (7.7%), Lakshadweep (9.71%), Tamil Nadu (8.83%), Uttar Pradesh (3.54%), Gujarat (3.61%) reported high wastage of the vaccine. Six of the states have also reported it in minus, but the state authorities have contested computing saying it is because of errors in keeping account of the received stock.

On April 7, Union minister Prakash Javadekar had said that the Maharashtra government was playing politics over the allotment of vaccine stock. He also alleged that it should first reply about the high wastage of vaccine. “Maharashtra Govt should not play politics over-vaccination. Here are the facts: Total number of COVID vaccine supplied to State till date - 1,06,19,190 ; Consumption - 905,3,523 (of which 6% wastage - over 5L) Vaccine in pipeline - 7,43,280. Dosage available - nearly 23 lakhs,” he had tweeted.

His remarks had sparked the political slugfest and Congress and Nationalist Congress Party leaders had said that in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states the wastage was more than that reported in Maharashtra.

On Tuesday, Maharashtra Congress general secretary and spokesperson Sachin Sawant said that Javadeklar should apologise to the people of Maharashtra for his lie. “Javadekarji’s falsehood has been exposed by the Central government’s press note as the wastage is not 6% and is just 0.22%. The Union minister has insulted Maharashtra by spreading wrong information for the sake of politics,” he said.

Sawant also cited a report prepared by Ashok University on Covid-19 in which it has been stated that the vaccine given to the state by the Centre were in not in the proportion of the population and the cases.

BJP’s media cell chief Vishwas Pathak said, “On one hand public health minister Rajesh Tope says that Maharashtra has trained manpower in the healthcare sector and they can ramp up daily inoculation to 1.2 million doses, why there was the wastage of 600,000 doses. In percentage, it may be less, but the wastage of such a huge stock when there was an acute shortage, is not acceptable.”