Recalled his May 27 dated letter seeking special vaccine allocation to TN to correct the disproportionately low allocation by the union government to the state, Stalin, in his demi official letter written to the PM on Tuesday, said the state has received only 29.18 lakh vaccines for people in 18-44 years category and 1.30 crore vaccines for people above 45 plus years category.

Stating that the government was finding it extremely difficult to meet the huge demand for vaccination throughout the state owing to inadequate vaccine allocation, the chief minister said, “The success of my government’s effort to eliminate vaccine hesitancy and make vaccine drive a mass movement squarely rests on the doses made available to us.” Requesting the PM’s immediate intervention to correct the imbalance in vaccine allocation to Tamil Nadu, Stalin asked the PM to make a special allocation of one crore vaccine doses to the state so that they are able to vaccinate the targeted population in the shortest possible time.

Referring to the union government’s submission in the Supreme Court in a related case that available vaccines were allocated to states in proportion to the population between 18 and 44 years of age of the respective state to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines, the CM said that Tamil Nadu has not received vaccines proportionate to its population size, resulting in current acute shortage of vaccines.

“The number of vaccine doses provided to our state is only 302 per thousand eligible population. This is very low when compared to the vaccine doses made available to comparable states like Gujarat, Karnataka and Rajasthan, which are at 533, 493 and 446, respectively,,” he added.