In urging the Prime Minister to provide vaccines to state governments for free, Sitaram Yechury has spoken for the nation, public intellectual Gopalkrishna Gandhi said on Sunday.
“His appeal goes on to ask for uninterrupted supply of oxygen to all hospitals. Both these steps are contingent on availability which, in turn, depends on technological prowess. But the most important clarification needed is this: Can the Government of India make funds needed for this enterprise available by suitable budgetary re-appropriations?” Gandhi said.
“If yes, then surely it ought not to be necessary to make state governments buy the vaccines for free or subsidised distribution. And if no, will it divert the funds needed from all money-guzzling projects that can wait for better times?”
Gandhi joined Communist leader Yechury in his plea and urged the government to suspend such projects and re-appropriate those sums to making , procuring and supplying vaccines to the states free of cost and make oxygen cylinders available as a national priority.
“The production and distribution of vaccines and oxygen cylinders is more urgent today than the production and distribution of any product has ever been in independent India. And certainly more urgent than the building of refurbished government precincts, not to mention temples and mosques,” Gandhi said.