The Centre is providing more Covid-19 vaccine doses to Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states while depriving West Bengal of them, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, according to PTI.
Banerjee said in her letter that 4 lakh vaccine doses were being administered in West Bengal every day and the state had the capability to increase the number to 11 lakh. “Yet we are getting much lower number of doses despite having a very high population density and a higher rate of urbanisation,” she added.
“I am sorry to say the central government is providing a larger number of vaccine doses to states like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, which are BJP-ruled,” Banerjee claimed. “I have no problem if they or any other state for that matter receives higher number of vaccine doses, but I cannot remain a mute spectator to see Bengal deprived.”
The West Bengal chief minister claimed that her requests to the Centre to provide more vaccines to her state had not received the due attention.
‘At present, Bengal needs around 14 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccine to cover all the people in the eligible categories,” she said, according to PTI. “However, we have received only 2.68 crore doses till date from GoI [Government of India].”
Banerjee said that the Covid-19 situation might become grim again if the pace of vaccination is not quickened. “So, my earnest appeal to you is to see that Bengal receives adequate vaccine doses as per its requirement,” she told Modi.
The West Bengal chief minister urged Modi not to discriminate among the states while allocating vaccine doses. “Please see the seriousness because Bengal is the border of three international countries and also is the border of eight sister states [the North East],” she said, according to PTI.
Meanwhile at a press conference on Thursday, Banerjee said the Covid-19 positivity rate in West Bengal was down to 1.57% largely because of her government’s containment efforts, The Indian Express reported. A state’s test positivity rate is the percentage of people who test positive for the virus out of those who have been tested overall.
Banerjee has repeatedly criticised the Centre over its vaccine supply policy. “Our shameless PM has failed the country but his picture is found everywhere – from vaccine certificates to hoardings,” Banerjee had said last month. “I have seen many prime ministers, but none so shameless.”
Abhijit Banerjee on vaccine supply
Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee said the Centre did not have the capability to supply enough vaccines, The Hindu reported on Thursday. Banerjee is a part of the Covid-19 management committee of West Bengal.
He held a meeting with the West Bengal chief minister to discuss management of the Covid-19 crisis.
“We have not reached the promised level of [vaccine] supply,” the economist was quoted as saying by The Hindu. Banerjee added that West Bengal had made effective use of the vaccines provided by the Centre.
West Bengal reported 812 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, taking the tally of infections since the outbreak of the pandemic last year to 15,31,662. The state’s toll rose by 13 to 18,193.
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