Modi govt has ordered to purchase additional 66 crore doses of Covishield and Covaxin coronavirus vaccines which will be supplied to Centre between August and December 2021, at a new revised price of Rs 205 and Rs 215 per shot, respectively, above taxes, official sources said.
According to the sources the Centre will buy 285 million Covaxin doses from Bharat Biotech and 375 million Covishield doses from the Serum Institute of India before December.
Meanwhile, the new procurement price would be like Rs 215.25 for Covishield and Rs 225.75 for Covaxin including taxes.
Earlier the Union health ministry was purchasing the Covid19 vaccines at Rs 150 per dose, but it was scheduled to change after the new COVID vaccine purchase policy came into effect on June 21. Under the new policy, the Govt under the health ministry will buy 75% of the vaccines from the local manufacture based in India.
However, the vaccine manufacturers are skeptical that this revised procurement cost is unviable for them to ramp up production at Rs 150 per dose. Before this policy came into effect Centre has allowed states and private hospitals to purchase 50% of the corona vaccines as per the demands of the state of decentralization.
However, after several incidents of mismanagement Modi govt has tweaked the policy on June 8; after that, the domestic vaccine manufacturers have the leeway to provide 25% of their monthly quota to private hospitals.
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As per the revised procurement guidelines effective from June 21, vaccine doses to the states must be provided free of cost by the Centre as per their population, and every citizen above the age of 18 will be eligible for the free vaccination while wastage of vaccine will weigh on future allocation negatively.
Meanwhile, to further equitable access and regional balance Centre has facilitated National Health Authority’s electronic platform for the payment of small & regional hospitals till now more than 41.69 crore vaccine doses have been provided to states and UTs according to the Union health ministry.
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