Centre should procure COVID-19 vaccines: Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik writes to other states

After talking to the Centre on the issue, Patnaik has said the states can't compete with one another in procuring the vaccines, which are key in beating the deadly virus.

He has also spoken to Chief Ministers of other states.

In his letter, Patnaik said, "No state is safe unless all the states adopt vaccination as the top most priority and execute it on war-footing. But this cannot be a battle among the states to compete against each other to procure vaccines."

"However, it is quite clear that the global vaccine manufacturers are looking forward to the Union Government for the clearances and assurances. They are unwilling to get into supply contract with the state governments. While the domestic vaccine manufacturers are having supply constraints and are not able to commit required supplies," the Chief Minister added.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during her press briefing in the afternoon said she was contacted by Patnaik on the issue.

"Naveen ji had called me last night. The Kerala Chief Minister also wants the central government to give free vaccines. The central government should procure vaccines and give them to the states. The states will then give free vaccines to people. We agree to this proposal."

Earlier, the Punjab and Delhi governments had approached US pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna for exportation of their vaccines but the manufacturers had cleared they would only deal with the Centre in India.

Following which, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had requested the Narendra Modi government to import vaccines from other countries and distribute them among the states and union territories.

So far, India has two three vaccines in hand, namely, Serum Institute of India (SII)'s Covishield, Covaxin developed by Bharat Biotech and Russia's Sputnik V.