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Updated April 26th, 2021 at 17:33 IST

Maharashtra: Congress peeved at ally NCP's unilateral 'free COVID-19 vaccine' announcement

In another rift within MVA, Congress slammed NCP for trying to seek credit by making a unilateral announcement about free COVID-19 vaccination in Maharashtra.

Reported by: Akhil Oka
Maharashtra
ANI/PTI | Image:self
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In another rift within MVA, Congress slammed NCP for trying to seek credit by making a unilateral announcement about free COVID-19 vaccination in Maharashtra. A day earlier, NCP spokesperson and Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik stated, "During the Cabinet meeting, there was unanimity that the government will administer the vaccine with its own money to the residents of Maharashtra aged between 18 and 45". While Maharashtra Tourism Environment Aaditya Thackeray reiterated this on Twitter, he deleted the Tweet and clarified that the official vaccination policy will be declared by the Empowered Committee. 

Maharashtra Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat remarked, "Honourable Sonia Gandhi had announced that vaccine doses will be administered free of cost. Our stance is the same. The citizens should be given free vaccines. We have pressed the CM for this. We are confident that he will definitely accept this demand." He added, "Even as the honourable CM is thinking about this, we are not happy in the manner in which someone made an announcement in a bid to take credit. The Congress party is unhappy." 

Vaccination policy in India

Apart from COVISHIELD and COVAXIN, the DCGI accepted the recommendations of the Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, paving way for the approval of Sputnik V on April 12. Moreover, the Union government declared that those vaccines that have been granted emergency approval for restricted use by USFDA, EMA, UK MHRA, PMDA Japan, or which are listed in WHO (Emergency Use Listing) will be granted emergency use approval in India. In place of the local clinical trial requirement, the post-approval bridging clinical trial shall be mandated.

In a huge announcement on April 19, the Centre relaxed the age bar for vaccination from May 1 onwards and mentioned that vaccine manufacturers can supply 50 per cent of its doses to state governments and in the open market. The private hospitals shall have to procure their supplies of the COVID-19 vaccines exclusively from this quota. While the Centre's procurement price for both COVISHIELD and COVAXIN remains at Rs.150 per dose, state governments and private hospitals will have to purchase them at a higher cost. 

However, they will have to follow all protocols such as being captured on the CoWIN platform and linked to AEFI reporting. At the same time, vaccination shall continue at Government of India vaccination centres for healthcare and frontline workers and those above 45 years. Additionally, the Centre stated that it will allocate vaccine doses to the states from the remaining 50% quota based on factors such as the number of active cases, speed of administration and vaccine wastage.

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Published April 26th, 2021 at 17:33 IST

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