Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said the Delhi government was in talks with the manufacturers of the Sputnik V for the procurement of the vaccine doses to be utilised in the Capital.
Talks were, however, still on in regard to the quantity of doses which would be supplied to the Delhi government, he said. Mr. Kejriwal was speaking after inspecting the first drive-thru vaccination centre in Dwarka.
“We will open more drive-thru centres like this soon...we are in talks with the manufacturers of the Sputnik vaccine on the quantity of doses they can supply to Delhi,” he told reporters.
“We made the mistake of not going ahead with the procurement and manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines well in time but there is no point discussing that now. Not even a single State government has been successful in procuring vaccine doses from the international market,” he also said.
Within 24 hours companies which manufactured vaccines could be directed to ramp up production but the Centre was not showing the requisite urgency in the matter, he alleged.
The country was in a “war-like situation” and the Centre needed to take the lead since the responsibility of buying and distributing vaccine doses lay with it.
“Why isn’t the Centre showing the required sense of urgency regarding this? The situation is like a war; if there was an actual war occurring, would States have had to make their own arrangements to defend themselves? It is the Centre’s responsibility,” he said.
