Centre says Jharkhand top in shot wastage, state says data wrong

A Day after the Health Ministry released data showing Jharkhand at the top of the vaccine wastage chart, the state Wednesday contested the ranking by presenting a much smaller wastage figure.

According to the Centre’s data, Jharkhand’s wastage proportion is 37.3%. The state government said it’s 4.65%.

The government’s response came after the Health Ministry said: “States has been urged repeatedly to keep vaccine wastage below 1%, many states such as Jharkhand (37.3%), Chhattisgarh (30.2%), Tamil Nadu (15.5%), Jammu and Kashmir (10.8%), Madhya Pradesh (10.7%) are reporting much higher wastage than the national average (6.3%).”

Chief Minister Hemant Soren tweeted: “…The data is just not confusing but also laughable. Till now Jharkhand has received 48.63 lakh vaccines and as per the Central government’s figure the state has used 40.12 lakh vaccines on its population—which can be cross checked with CoWin app data and certificates issued…37% of 48.63 lakh would be around 18 lakh then how come we administered 40.12 lakh to the people.”