The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) has disqualified all nine suppliers of the Covid-19 vaccine on Friday due to lack of adequate paperwork. The suppliers had placed bids for a global tender for making one crore vaccines available, said a media statement issued by the MCGM.
On the other hand, MCGM is also in talks with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL) for procuring the Sputnik vaccine. DRL has agreed to provide some stock of the vaccines on a pilot basis by the end of June. Additional Municipal Commissioner, P Velrasu, on Friday, discussed the procurement with DRL, said the statement.
Of the nine potential suppliers, seven had expressed interest in supplying Sputnik V Covid vaccine while one had shown interest in supplying Sputnik Light (single dose) vaccine. The ninth potential supplier had merely said it could provide an approved vaccine to the MCGM.
For procuring the vaccines, MCGM had placed a global expression of interest on 12 May. Since then, the tender had received two extensions. June 1 was the last day for placing the bids.
The media statement said that it was important to examine the business relationship between suppliers and companies that produce vaccines. MCGM also studied in detail the vaccine delivery schedule, stocks, rates and availability of the vaccines.
After the June 1 deadline, the municipal administration scrutinised all the required documents submitted by the nine potential suppliers. At the end of the scrutiny, none of the suppliers could qualify due to a lack of complete documentation.
The cold chain requirements of Sputnik vaccines are different. Therefore, after procuring the vaccine, they would be stored in cold storage and tests would be carried out. Talks were also held with DRL for procuring a large supplies of Sputnik vaccines in July and August, the statement added.