Ranchi: BJP on Friday hailed the contribution of India’s scientists for developing a vaccine for the npvel coronavirus and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for orchestrating the world's largest vaccination drive. Syed Zafar Islam, banker-turned-national spokesperson of the saffron party, said India-developed Covid vaccines are the cheapest in the world.
“All credit goes to our scientists who developed vaccines that are cheap and efficient. While Covid-19 vaccines in India are priced around Rs 206 (per vial), the Chinese, European and American ones are priced between Rs 2,800 and Rs 5,800,” Islam told journalists at the party’s state headquarters in Harmu.
Islam, a native of Hazaribag and Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh, said the Union government's decision to impose a nationwide lockdown in March last year proved to be a right decision as far as checking the spread of infection in the country, which is home to 20% of the world's population.
“If you look at the numbers, nearly 10 crore people have been infected with the virus globally and 20 lakh of them have died. But in India, which has 20% of the world's population, 1.1 crore people have been infected and about 1.5 lakh died. The casualties are unfortunate, but from a global perspective, India did well with the recovery rate at nearly 97%. This was a huge feat. And now, from Saturday onwards, the world’s largest Covid vaccination drive will commence in which 30 crore people will be inoculated," Islam claimed.
While he hailed the efforts of the government at the Centre, Islam criticized the Congress party for misleading the people on the efficacy of the virus. "First, they misled farmers about the new farm laws and now, they are doing the same with the vaccine," he added.
BJP's state president and Islam’s Rajya Sabha colleague Deepak Prakash took a jibe at the Congress party's Raj Bhavan march to protest against the farm laws. “In the Congress party's Raj Bhavan march, the farmers were missing. It was only Congress leaders who turned up to get themselves photographed,” Prakash claimed.
“If this government is really sympathetic towards the farmers, it should re-implement the Mukhyamantri Krishi Ashirwad Yojana, which was rolled out by the previous state government,” Prakash claimed. The scheme promised financial assistance of Rs 5,000 per acre to small and marginal farmers of Jharkhand and was rolled out in 2019. It was discontinued in 2020 citing shortage of funds.