Centre to shoulder remaining 25% of vaccine work done by states, says PM Modi

In his address to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Centre changed the vaccination policy on demand from states and they had to handle only 25% of the work, after they said the previous arrangement was better.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said the Centre would take the full responsibility of the procurement of coronavirus vaccines for the states.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the states will be informed about the number of doses they will be getting a week before the supply. (File photo)

He said that in a major shift in the previous vacccine procurement policy, introduced on May 1 in which the states had to procure 25% of the vaccines from vaccine makers, the Centre will do it on behalf of the sates and supply it to them free of cost.

"Two weeks into the month of May, states began to say that the centralised system (of vaccine distribution) was better. We will take care of the 25% work given to states. It will be implemented in two weeks. From June 21, we will provide free vaccines to states for those above 18," Modi said in his address.

He said the states will be informed about the number of doses they will be getting a week before the supply. "There shouldn't be differences and debates over vaccines," he added.

"A lot of demands were raised that the states should get rights for managing the Covid-19. The states demanded vaccine decentralisation and questions were raised on why senior citizens were vaccinated first. After giving it a lot of thought, we changed the way vaccinations were done. We gave 25% of the work to the states. Now they have started to realise the difficulty the work involves," the Prime Minister said.