Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has expressed apprehension of likely chaos at COVID-19 vaccination sites due to unavailability of vaccines for the 18-44 age bracket people who have registered online.
Baghel has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, saying that, in the circumstances, the Union government should decide age-wise priority for vaccination and also accord highest priority to the socio-economically backward classes for vaccination.
In his letter, the latest in series of communications that Baghel has been sending to the PM and the Union health minister regarding COVID-19 situation and third phase of vaccination, the CM said that the online registration for people of 18-44 age bracket started online on April 28 and according to available information, over 1.7 crore have registered for the same, though the state-wise data on registration was not available online.
He added that according to the directives of the Centre, the vaccine doses for this age bracket is to be procured by the state governments. “In this context, the state (Chhattisgarh) has sent across demand of 25 lakh doses each to the producers of both Covishield (Serum Institute) and Covaxin (Bharat Biotech). Only Bharat Biotech replied saying that only 3 lakh doses out of the demand could be made available in the month of May,” Baghel said in the letter.
“In such a situation, due to high number of registration and unavailability of vaccine doses in that proportion, there is likelihood of problems arising in crowd management at the session sites for vaccination,” the CM added.
Further in the letter, Baghel said that currently, the registration facility for vaccination is available only online and this can lead to an increase in chances of the socio-economically backward class people remaining deprived of vaccination. “Therefore, facility of on-site (offline) registration should be made available to the 18-44 age group people too so that no one is deprived of vaccination,” Baghel said.
Chhattisgarh government was among the first states in the country to express inability to commence the 18-44 age bracket vaccination from May 1, citing vaccine unavailability.
The state government has announced free vaccination for this age bracket people too, but there is no schedule yet for the vaccination. According to available information, approximately 1.3 crore people in the state fall in the 18-44 age bracket and the government is likely to have to vaccinate at least 70 per cent of these people. The cost of this vaccination is likely to be between Rs 350 to 400 crore, sources said.
