Friday, March 29, 2024

This same Hemant Soren was promising free vaccines a month back: Now he wants Centre to pay





A month ago Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren was promising free vaccination in his State. Now he is harping on that Centre should pay for the vaccination. (Is it any wonder that Opposition is shamelessly pursuing the vaccine agenda to pin down the Modi government with anything they could?). 

In his letter to prime minister Narendra Modi, Soren has mentioned that the financial burden for the state to cover 1.57 crore beneficiaries is “likely to be around Rs 1,100 crore”, which will hit its financial situation.

He also mentioned that  Jharkhand has always received vaccines free of cost from the Central government for all other programs such as Pulse Polio and Routine Immunisation and the same should be applicable for Covid-19 vaccines as well. 

However, It is pertinent to note that similar to his Delhi counterpart- Arvind Kejriwal, he had earlier advocated for de-centralization of vaccine procurement and now he is asking centre to take procure and distribute vaccines for free, which the government is already doing since the beginning. 

Not only he wants free vaccination from Centre but also want to decide whom to vaccinate first on priority basis. 

So far, Jharkhand’s COVID-19 tally stood to 3,36,943 on Monday as 703 more people tested positive for the infection, while 19 fresh fatalities pushed the state’s coronavirus death toll to 4,977.

And yes, Jharkhand tops the list of States who waste vaccines which was rated by Centre as 37.3%. 


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