Centre is capping Delhi's direct vax purchases: Report

New Delhi: Despite giving state and union territory governments the power to directly purchase Covid vaccines from manufacturers under its "liberalised" vaccination policy, the Central government is capping the number of vaccine doses the Delhi government can purchase directly from both SII (Covishield) and Bharat Biotech (Covaxin), letters sent by the Union Health Ministry to the Delhi government have now shown.

According to the two letters sent to the Delhi government on May 17, the Central government has intimated to the Capital's officials that only 3,09,220 doses of Covishield and 91,960 doses of Covaxin will be available for it to purchase directly in the month of June for the 18-44 age category, as per an NDTV report.

In addition to this, the Centre has said that it will be delivering 96,300 doses of Covaxin and 3,19,510 doses of Covishield to the city for free for those above 45, frontline workers and healthcare workers in June, as per the letter, which Millennium Post has also seen.

For scale, the Delhi government had in April ordered 67 lakh doses of each vaccine for the 18-44 age group in the month of May. So far, till May 26, according to the Delhi government, the city has received 1.5 lakh Covaxin doses and 6.67 lakh Covishield doses, of which just about 42,000 doses are left.

Even in April, the Delhi government had claimed that the Centre was not allowing BB and SII to supply them the 67 lakh doses each for the month of May. While the manufacturers had said that they were following Centre's guidelines on selling to states, the Centre had denied it.

Eventually, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had released two similar letters in early May, which also indicated that the Centre was dictating how much the Delhi government can directly purchase from the manufacturers.

Significantly, all 400 vaccination centres of the Delhi government for the 18-44 age group have now been shut for the last three days due to a shortage of vaccines.