After Akali Dal’s accusations over reselling of Covaxin doses, the Punjab government withdrew its order allowing “one-time limited vaccine doses to 18-44 age group population through private hospitals”.
It wasn’t “taken in the right spirit and is hereby withdrawn,” read the letter signed by the state-in-charge for vaccination, Vikas Garg.
“Further, it has been decided that the private hospitals should return forthwith all the vaccine doses available with them. The doses which they have utilised as of date should also be returned, once they get supplies from the manufacturers,” the order said.
The Union Health Ministry had sought Punjab’s response over a news article, which mentioned Akali Dal chief’s accusation over vaccine procurement at a lower rate and sale at a much higher price to private hospitals.
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“The state government is, therefore, requested to confirm the veracity of this news article and send a clarification to MoHFW (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) immediately in this regard,” the Health Ministry said in its letter addressed to the Principal Secretary of the state’s Health Department.
Sometime back, Congress had witnessed itself in the dock as Punjab Health Minister BS Sidhu was accused of “diverting” covid-19 vaccines to private hospitals to sell them at “hefty margins”.
The minister responded to the allegations on Friday, saying that he will conduct an inquiry over the matter and that he doesn’t have “control over vaccines”. The first report of the investigation promise he made was supposed to arrive today.
“I don’t have control over vaccines. I just look over treatment, testing, sampling of COVID-19 and vaccination camps. We will definitely set an inquiry… I myself can enquire,” Mr Sidhu said.
The string of events took place on Thursday after Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Badal claimed that the minister had resold 40,000 jabs of Covaxin with high-profit margins. The latest accusation to the Congress-led Punjab government comes amid chances of a revolt before the elections begin in 2022.
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Mr Badal said the vaccines were bought for Rs. 400 but sold to private hospitals for Rs. 1,060- meaning a “profit” of Rs. 660 per vial. These hospitals then sold it to citizens at Rs. 1,560 per dose- Rs 500 more than its cost price.
He added, “This amounts to a cost of ₹ 6,000 to ₹ 9,000 per family for a single (round of) dose,” further claiming that the government earned a “profit” of Rs 2 crore in one day in Mohali after 35,000 doses were sold to private vendors.
He called out the “immoral” Congress government and demanded a probe monitored by the High Court, including a case against Mr Sidhu.
BJP jumped in to join the lash-out at Congress as Union Minister Prakash Javadekar took the initiative to slam Rahul Gandhi after the party leader remained highly critical of the Central government’s handling of the covid vaccination programme.
“Rahul Gandhi should first look after his state rather than giving lectures to others. Punjab has been provided with more than 1.40 lakh doses of Covaxin at ₹ 400 and they’ve given it to 20 private hospitals at ₹ 1000,” he said.
Junior Finance Minister Anurag Thakur too chipped in his criticism on Thursday as ANI quoted him saying that the Punjab government was showing a “callous attitude towards the people”.
“Why should an individual pay over ₹ 3,120 for two doses when the centre is providing free vaccines to the state?” he questioned while accusing them of having a “hand in glove with private hospitals”.
“They are creating a false narrative about vaccine scarcity…” he said.
Punjab is one of the many states that raised the topic of the vaccine shortage. The Centre, meanwhile, called out states for “vaccine wastage”. The heated exchange of blames hasn’t come to an end yet.
However, the Centre declared that it will vaccinate every citizen by the end of December this year. This claim was met with the Supreme Court’s sharp remarks that asked it to furnish the plan of action for the same.