State-owned vaccine manufacturers sit idle as India scours for jabs: Report

The report says that on March 17, Maharashtra’s Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had specifically asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a video-conferencing to allow the transfer of Covaxin technology to state-owned Haffkine Institute in Mumbai. The Centre has not yet given a go-ahead.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, India was the world leader in vaccine production. But presently, China and USA are manufacturing more Covid-19 vaccines than India.

The DTE report suggests that India’s public sector needs a second chance. Government needs to put money into the public sector to ramp up their infrastructure and vaccine production. Nations the world over are realising that profit-driven private players might not be enough during the unprecedented crisis, the report says.

“In India, the public sector should be revived to its full capacity with adequate support to strengthen its inherent strengths on expertise and skilled human resource,” Y. Madhavi, researcher at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research–National Institute of Science, Technology And Development Studies, is quoted as saying.