Rahul Gandhi slams no govt timeline to complete vaccination; BJP vows 'All 18+ by Dec'

Lambasting the Centre over the slow-paced vaccination, ex-Congress chief Rahul Gandhi lamented that the Centre had no timeline for completing the vaccination drive in India. Stating that people's lives are at stake, he said that the Govt's response was a 'classic case of missing spine'. As of date, 42.78 Cr. vaccine doses have been administered of which 33,39,59,368 have received the first dose and 8,99,11,530 have got two doses.

Rahul Gandhi: Where are vaccines?

Replying to Rahul Gandhi, BJP I-T chief shared the govt's answer in Parliament, highlighting the Centre's aim to vaccinate all those above 18 years by December 2021. Asking what was the Wayanad MP's problem, he asked, "Did you not attend the session or can you not comprehend?". Centre has allocated 6,30,06,250 doses in July as part of its free vaccine drive to states and UTs.

State-wise vaccine allocation

On Friday, Ministry of Health revealed the free vaccines supplied to states and UTs till July 2021. Topping the list in allocation is Uttar Pradesh procuring 90,92,780 doses, followed by Maharashtra (52,01,640), Madhya Pradesh (47,18,350), Bihar (47,05,140), Rajasthan (37,46,580) and West Bengal (33,62,210). Centre has stated that 135 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccine are expected to be available between August 2021 to December 2021 and Rs 9725.15 crore have been spent so far on the COVID19 vaccination programme.

As per the list placed in Lok Sabha by Centre, prior to the Modi govt taking over 75% procurement of vaccines, 1,97,98,090 doses were procured by states directly in June 2021. Here also Uttar Pradesh topped the list procuring 31,44,750 doses, followed Bihar (27,88,050), Madhya Pradesh (18,91,660), Tamil Nadu (16,07,840) and Rajasthan (12,66,000). Surprisingly, Maharashtra which tops the country in COVID cases, procured no doses. Similarly, Andhra Pradesh too procured no doses in June. High case-load states like Kerala procured 4,58,250 doses, Punjab 6,88,870 doses and Delhi 5,60,040 doses. 

With a single-day rise of 35,087 cases, India's COVID-19 recovery climbed to 3,05,03,166 on Saturday, while 546 more fatalities pushed the death toll due to the viral disease to 4,20,016, according to the Union Health Ministry.  The number of active cases has declined to  4,08,977, accounting for 1.31 per cent of the total caseload and the national COVID-19 positivity rate is held at 2.22%, the ministry's data updated at 10 AM showed. A total of 45.45 cr tests were conducted in past 24 hours.