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Updated May 29th, 2021 at 13:10 IST

Chidambaram seeks CAG audit of both Bharat Biotech & Serum institute's vaccine production

ex-Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday, demanded a CAG driven audit of capacity, production, despatch, supply and customers’ lists of BBL & Serum

Chidambaram
IMAGE: PTI/AP | Image:self
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Raising questions on 'capacity-production' disparity on vaccines, ex-Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday, demanded a CAG driven audit of capacity, production, despatch, supply and customers’ lists of the two domestic manufacturers to solve the 'mystery of missing vaccines'. He claimed that while there could be a difference in capacity and production, he wanted to know the actual quantity produced so far by the two domestic manufacturers. Chidambaram's statement comes a day after Bharat Biotech issued its 120-day process from ordering the vaccine to supply.

Chidambaram demands CAG audit on Bharat Biotech & Serum

The ex-Union minister claimed that Bharat Biotech's statement on ‘lead time’ required to produce a batch of vaccines has added to the confusion. Targetting corporate companies like Reliance Group, HCL and others, he asked how they were expecting to get vaccines while state govts are not able to get supplies from any manufacturer — domestic or foreign. Reiterating his audit demand, he said it would prevent the public anger over the shortage of vaccines 'pouring into the streets'.

BBL statement

On Friday, Bharat Biotech issued a statement on the production & supply of COVID-19 vaccines to the states and noted that the manufacturing, testing, release and distribution of vaccines, briefing that there was a 4-month lag time for COVAXIN to translate into actual vaccination. Noting that the timeline for manufacturing, testing and release for a batch of COVAXIN was approximately 120 days, the company said that the batches whose production was initiated in March would only be ready for supply in June. Further, it noted that it took two days for the supplies to reach the state & Centre govts' depots from Bharat Biotech’s facilities and that it would then be distributed by respective governments equitably across all sections of the population.

India's vaccine shortage crisis

India's vaccination drive has hit a roadblock due to shortage of supplies. On April 19, Centre relaxed the age bar for vaccination from May 1 onwards allowing 18+ to be vaccinated, and states to procure doses from manufacturers directly and approved an advance payment of Rs 4,567.50 crores to Serum Institute of India (SII) & Bharat Biotech (BBL) to ramp up vaccine production. Soon enough, most state governments placed lakhs of orders with the two vaccine manufacturers, but are yet to receive their orders. States like Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Jammu-Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Delhi have postponed their vaccination drive by two weeks at least due to a shortage of vaccine doses. Both Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India (SII) have offered vaccines at RS 150/dose to the Centre, but at Rs 300 and Rs 400 respectively to state governments. Centre has set a December 2021 deadline to vaccinate all adults in India with 216 crore doses.

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Published May 29th, 2021 at 13:10 IST

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