E-Paper
Use RBI-approved ₹99k-crore for Covid jabs: Kerala HC to Centre
Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala high court on Monday suggested that the Centre provide free Covid-19 vaccines to citizens by using the recent dividends of more than ₹99,000 crore from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala high court on Monday suggested that the Centre provide free Covid-19 vaccines to citizens by using the recent dividends of more than ₹99,000 crore from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Hearing a petition questioning the different price regimes for vaccines and its subsequent scarcity, the single bench headed by Justice Vinod Chandran observed that the Centre can use ₹34,000 crore to inoculate 137 crore people in the country byutilising the ₹99,000 crore that was recently approved by the central bank.
“You have an additional income from the RBI, why don’t you use it for this purpose. We are asking you to ask your policy makers about this,” the court told the counsel for the Union government.
During the hearing, the counsel for the petitioner contended that the production of vaccination was reduced after the new policy, wherein 50% of the vaccine supply will be managed by the Centre while the remaining will be procured by the states directly from manufacturers, was introduced from May 1.
However, Raj Kumar, counsel for the Centre, told the court that vaccines were being given free of cost to people above 45 years of age and about 80 lakh vaccines were already given to the state.
Citing it as a policy matter, Kumar sought more time to file a response.
At this point, the court said this was not the time to look into matters of federalism and Centre-state relations.
It later adjourned the hearing till May 31 for a detailed statement from the Centre.
In Kerala, approximately 20 lakh people have received both the doses and about 60 lakh have received only the first jab so far.
The state, meanwhile, reported 17,821 new cases on Monday while 87,331 samples were tested with a test positivity rate of 20.41 per cent. The state also reported 196 deaths. The active cases stood at 259,179, according to the data released by the state health ministry.
