Govt will do whatever it takes to meet needs of people: Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla

As India marks a major shift in policy in 16 years, accepting gifts, donations and aid from foreign nations, as the country faces a massive shortage of oxygen, drugs and equipment amid a surge in Covid cases, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla on Thursday said the government “will do whatever it takes” to meet the needs of the people in these “very unprecedented and very exceptional” times.

This is the first time a senior government official has come out to defend India’s strategic choice of accepting aid from foreign governments and also procure emergency medical supplies from China in the face of a health crisis.

“We are looking at it in terms of a situation that is very, very unusual, that is very unprecedented, that is very exceptional, and we will do whatever it takes to meet the requirements of our people at this point in time,” Shringla told reporters.

Sources told The Indian Express that the US administration under President Joe Biden will redirect from its own supplies 20 million doses of Astra Zeneca vaccines, and the timeline will be conveyed later. Besides, 20,000 treatment courses of remdesivir drug will be sent early next week. It is supplying from its stock 36 millipore filters, each of which will enable manufacture of 5 lakh doses of Covishield vaccines in India.

Three military aircraft from the US will bring supplies – two will arrive on April 30 and one is expected on May 3. Around 40 nations, including the US, Russia, Japan, France, Germany and the UK, have assistance to India.

Shringla said the pandemic has led to an unprecedented situation and India is not looking at medical supplies and assistance from its partners and friends in terms of any policy. “We have given assistance; we are getting assistance. It shows an interdependent world. It shows a world that is working with each other.”

India sent about 6.5 crore vaccines to over 80 countries, besides other consignments. “They are extending support as they feel this is the time we must help India. ‘India has helped us and we must help India’. So I do not think we are looking at it in policy terms,” Shringla said.