The Finance Minister of Telangana Harish Rao says the Union govt must and should permit State Governments to acquire vaccines from other countries.
Siddipet: Finance Minister Mr. T Harish Rao said that Centre was not either allowing the State Government to procure vaccines from industries nor was not coming forward to supply the jabs by its own to the States.
Mentioning that these existing guidelines were not allowing Telangana Government to purchase the Covid-19 vaccines by it’s own from industries based in the State, the Minister also said that the Union government of India was not even allowing the State Government to purchase them from foreign companies.
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Featuring the shortcomings of the Centre’s vaccine procurement policy, he said that the Union government was trying to blame the State Governments for their errors and failures. Demanding the Centre Government to allow the States to procure the vaccines from foreign countries, Harish Rao said that the Telangana government had given Rs 100 crore in advance to different industries to bring in the Covaxin and Covishield vaccines so far.
Minister Harish Rao Questions Central Govt Over Shortage of COVID Vaccine in Telangana
As long as the Centre Government has designated the vaccine distribution to all States, the Minister Harish Rao said that the companies, which are producing and manufacturing the vaccine in the Telangana State, couldn’t supply enough vaccine doses to the State. The state requests urgently to the Centre to moderate the vaccines procurement to help the State Governments to complete immunization as soon as possible, Mr. Rao said that the importance of vaccine procurement must be rest with the States.
Expressing that the Telangana government is totally equipped to battle Covid, the Minister said that they would battle the third wave all the more productively. “The house to house study in the State assisted us with forestalling additionally spread of the infection, ” he said.
As part of their efforts to contain the spread of the virus, he told that the State government of Telangana had decided to vaccinate around 8.50 lakh people from higher risks groups in 13 municipal corporations and 129 municipalities in the State of Telangana. The higher risk groups include vendors of fruits who earn regular basis, vegetable vendors, shopkeepers in wine shops and bars, servants in hotels, people working at burial grounds and others as usual.