CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government on Monday urged the Centre to revise the 75:25 allocation format of Covid vaccines to government and private institutions and demanded that 90% of the doses be given to state-run facilities.
In a letter to Union health minister Harsh Vardhan, chief minister MK Stalin said the “25% allocation to private hospitals is grossly higher when compared to the actual vaccinations done by them.”
Seeking increased allocation of Covid vaccines to the state, Stalin said in Tamil Nadu, around 1.43 crore vaccines have been used so far, out of which private hospitals have “used only 6.5 lakh doses, which translates to just 4.5%.”
“The mismatch between demand and supply in government and private institutions has resulted in a situation where the private hospitals in Tamil Nadu have around 7-8 lakh doses available with them whereas government institutions are left with just two lakh doses, which is lesser than their current single day usage,” he said.
This can be rectified only by a more rational and performance-based distribution of doses, the CM added.
Available resources have to be put to best use, he said, adding Centre should immediately “evaluate the vaccine doses allotted to various states so far, in terms of doses allotted per thousand population and ensure that necessary compensatory allocations are made to states who have been allotted lower number of doses per capita.”
“Revise the allocation between the government and private institutions to 90:10 as against the current allocation of 75:25,” he urged Vardhan.
The chief minister reiterated his earlier request for an allocation of one crore vaccine doses, saying the pace of inoculation has tripled in the state but the allotment to Tamil Nadu has been one of the “lowest” among the states in the country in terms of doses per thousand population. State medical and family welfare minister Ma Subramanian also flagged the shortage of vaccines. PTI