Centre to provide free vaccine to states from June 21, PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that the Centre would take back control of vaccination from the states and provide free vaccines to all in the next two weeks. Modi said that the Centre will buy 75 per cent of the total vaccine production from manufacturers and give it free of cost to the state governments and will also bear the responsibility of 25 per cent of the work related to vaccination with the states. States will be given vaccines free of cost from June 21.In  Private hospitals can buy 25 per cent, but additional hospital charges have been capped at Rs 150. In his address to the nation on Monday evening, PM Modi said that from June 21, the Centre will provide free vaccines for all citizens above the age of 18 years.

This is the biggest pandemic in the last hundred years and modern world had neither seen nor experienced such an pandemic, he said. “If you look at the history of the last 50-60 years, you will know that it used to take decades for India to get the vaccine from abroad. Vaccine work used to be completed abroad, even then the work of vaccination could not start in our country,” PM Modi said.

The Prime Minister also put out an emphatic defence of his government's vaccination policy, tackling criticism by states and opposition parties over the past several weeks amid a shortage of vaccines.It was states that wanted decentralization, he said, and that is why they were given 25 per cent vaccination responsibility. He said India's vaccine policy had been a success because of "good intentions and clear policy". "If we did not have a made-in-India vaccine, can you imagine what would have happened in a country like India," he said. He pointed out that earlier, India would take decades to get vaccines from abroad. "The speed at which it was going, it would take 40 years for 100 per cent coverage," he said.