HAVING obtained no bids for its world tender for vaccine procurement, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy Thursday wrote to Chief Ministers of a number of states, together with Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, that the scenario has reworked right into a “States vs Union” difficulty and it was time for all states to “speak in a single voice”.
With the vaccination drive slowing down in states, Reddy’s tone has modified fairly a bit from a month in the past when he “urged” his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren to not take pleasure in politics by pointing fingers at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
On May 6, Soren had tweeted that Prime Minister Modi known as and solely spoke his thoughts, and didn’t trouble to hear. Responding to this, Reddy tweeted, “In this war against Covid-19, these are the times not to point fingers but to come together and strengthen the hands of our Prime Minister to effectively combat the pandemic.”
In Thursday’s letter to CMs, Reddy, nonetheless, termed the Centre’s choice to present states a bigger say in vaccine procurement as “unwarranted” particularly with so many constraints in vaccine manufacturing. The vaccination drive itself was “plagued by multiple coordination issues”, he mentioned.
“It is my request that as Chief Ministers we speak in a single voice and urge the Government of India to take charge and responsibility of the vaccination drive, the way it was happening in the early part of the year,” he mentioned. A centralised and coordinated vaccination, supported by the state, would result in great outcomes for the folks of India, he additional mentioned.
The AP authorities had floated a world tender on May 13 for vaccines (from international producers) enough to inoculate one crore folks. “The date of submission of bids was 3rd June until 5 pm, but to my dismay no one quoted…” he mentioned in his letter.