Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday requesting his intervention to correct the imbalance in the COVID-19 vaccine allocation for the State, and to make a special allocation of 1 crore vaccine doses.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in its affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, had submitted that the States have been allocated the available vaccine quantity in proportion to the population between 18 and 44 years of age. “However, Tamil Nadu has not received vaccines proportionate to its population size resulting in the current acute shortage of vaccines,” Mr Stalin said.
The number of vaccine doses provided to Tamil Nadu was only 302 per thousand eligible population, he pointed out and underlined that it was 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 per thousand eligible population respectively.
In his letter, a copy of which was circulated to the media, the Chief Minister recalled his earlier communications requesting Mr. Modi’s immediate intervention in making a special allocation of COVID-19 vaccines to Tamil Nadu. As of July 8, Tamil Nadu has received only 29,18,110 vaccines from the Government of India, for people in 18-44 years category and 1,30,08,440 vaccines for the above 45 years category.
“As the allocation of vaccines is very inadequate, we are finding it extremely difficult to meet the huge demand for vaccination throughout the State. The success of my Government’s efforts to eliminate vaccine hesitancy and make the vaccination drive a mass movement now squarely rests on the doses made available to us,” Mr. Stalin contended.
He urged Mr Modi to immediately intervene to correct the imbalance in the vaccine allocation for Tamil Nadu and make a special allocation of 1 crore vaccine doses, so that the State is able to vaccinate the targeted population in the shortest possible time.