The sparring between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Central government and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government continued, with Union Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday slamming the MVA for “poor administration of vaccines”.
“Maharashtra Government had only used 23 lakh vaccines out of the total 54 lakh vaccines sent to the state, till 12th March. 56% vaccines remained unused. Now, Shiv Sena MP asks for more vaccines for the state. First mismanagement of pandemic now poor administration of vaccines,” tweeted Mr. Javadekar, who is Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
In a sharp riposte to Mr. Javadekar’s remarks, senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Jayant Patil, who is the State Water Resources Minister, said that despite vaccines being manufactured by Indian companies, the Centre was more eager to export them to foreign countries, including Pakistan, without adequately addressing the needs at home.
“Despite the fact that the vaccines are manufactured by Indian firms [Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech], why is it that the Centre has been slow in vaccinating the people of this country who have helped vote the BJP to power? The Centre is sending vaccines abroad, giving it wholesale to countries including Pakistan. I guess one must appreciate the generosity of the Central government. It seems it is all right to them if Indians are bereft of vaccine doses and lag behind in vaccination,” said Mr. Patil, in a droll rebuke.
On Tuesday, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote to the Maharashtra government and admonished the MVA administration for “inadequate” contact-tracing efforts while urging that it must focus on strict and effective containment strategies and plan for a worst-case scenario.
Meanwhile, stating that there was no need to panic, State Health Minister Rajesh Tope said that despite the rise in infections, the number of fatalities in the State had gone down.
“Of the current active cases, only 5% are presently occupying oxygen beds in hospitals. Of these, a mere 3.8% are in the ICU. The case fatality rate in the State is declining. The virulence is less in the renewed surge,” said Mr. Tope.
He said that the government’s emphasis was on ramping up vaccination, and added that he had written to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan that Maharashtra needed 2.20 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses from the Centre for the ongoing inoculation drive in the State, which translated to 20 lakh doses per week to the State.
“While I respect Mr. Javadekar, I have spoken to both Dr. Harsh Vardhan and Mr. Bhushan and informed them that Maharashtra only has 10 days’ vaccine stock left. We told them that as we are vaccinating more people daily, we would need at least 20 lakh doses per week,” Mr. Tope said.
The Health Minister informed that thus far, 33.65 lakh health and frontline workers, and citizens beyond the age of 60 as well as those above 45 with co-morbidities, had been inoculated across 180 centres in the State.
“On Tuesday itself, we vaccinated as many as 2.32 lakh people. We propose to increase the daily target even more,” he said.
With Maharashtra reporting an average daily spike of more than 15,000 cases for the past one week, the State’s active case tally has shot up to 1.40 lakh. The State contributes to nearly 60% of India’s total active cases with eight of the 10 most-affected districts in India, including Pune and Nagpur, in terms of active cases being from Maharashtra.
