Modi govt. absolving itself from colossal health crisis: CPI(M)

Its vaccine strategy shift entire responsibility on to the State governments

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The CPI(M) polit bureau in a statement here slammed the third phase of national vaccine strategy accusing the Narendra Modi government of attempting to absolve itself from the colossal health crisis and shifting the entire responsibility on to the State governments.

“This policy is essentially an effort to liberalise vaccine sales and deregulate prices, without augmenting supply,” the Polit Bureau statement said. The Centre, the party said, failed to ramp up the vaccine supplies for a year. The new policy, they said, is a recipe for exclusion of crores of people who will find it unaffordable to procure the life-saving vaccine.

“Further, vaccines were so far free of cost to the States. Now States have to ‘procure’ them from the ‘open market’ without any price regulation. The vaccine providers according to this latest policy will declare their ‘self-set price’. This again is bound to exclude an overwhelming majority of our people.”

The State governments should be funded for the vaccines from the Central exchequer. This policy would also breed large-scale black marketeering and hoarding, the party said.

“The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) strongly condemns this discriminatory, anti-equity and haphazard policy making of the Centre aimed at absolving itself from all responsibility. This is not going to mitigate the pandemic or resolve the huge public health emergency that our people face. On the contrary, such a discriminatory policy will only make India more vulnerable to the pandemic surge,” the party said.