Naveen Patnaik pitches for vaccine procurement by Centre in letter to all CMs

Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday wrote to all the chief ministers in the country urging them to build a consensus over procurement of the Covid19 vaccines by the Centre for distribution among the statesIn the letter Patnaik wrote that no state is safe unless all the states adopt vaccination as the topmost priority and execute it on warfootingThe only way to protect our people against future waves and provide them with a hope of survival is vaccination Patnaik wrote in the letter that he shared on Twitter tagging all the chief ministersWrote to all CMs for a consensus on centralised procurement of vaccines by GOI in view of the challenges faced by states Spoke to some CMs who shared my views No State is safe unless all States adopt vaccination as a top priority amp execute it on warfooting pictwittercomlMkpjDeYRgmdash Naveen Patnaik Naveen_Odisha June 2 2021But this cannot be a battle among the states to compete against each other to procure vaccines he addedAlso Read Norms for clearing foreignmade Covid19 vaccines eased by DCGIPatnaik noted that after the Centre announced phase 3 of the vaccine policy allowing vaccination for everyone above the age of 18 and opened procurement for the states and private sector the demand increasedMany states have floated global tenders for vaccine procurement However it is quite clear that the global vaccine manufacturers are looking forward to the Union Government for the clearances and assurances he saidThey are unwilling to get into supply contracts with the State government While the domestic vaccine manufacturers are having supply constraints and are not able to commit required supplies the chief minister saidPatnaik said that under these circumstances the best option available is for the Centre to centrally procure vaccines and distribute them among the states so that people are vaccinated at the earliestAt the same time the execution of the vaccination programme has to be decentralised and states allowed the flexibility to determine their own mechanism to ensure universal vaccination he saidFor example many hilly areas have no internet access and therefore online registration has to be flexible he saidPatnaik said that he has already raised the matter with the Centre and also spoken to a few chief ministersHowever I would respectfully suggest that all the state Governments should come to a consensus on this issue for early resolution of this problem We should act fast before any third wave comes and creates further havoc he saidMaintaining that the Covid19 pandemic is the greatest challenge that the country is facing since the Independence struggle Patnaik urged the chief ministers to come together in the spirit of cooperative federalism setting aside the political differencesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever