The first day of the Centre’s new vaccine policy turned out to be a blockbuster vaccination day for India as the country administered 80.96 lakh jabs as of 8pm on Monday — almost double the earlier highest mark of 43 lakh recorded in early April.
The centralised free vaccination drive began from today with the Centre providing free vaccines to states for all age groups — in a change from the previous policy of states procuring vaccines for the 18-44 age group.
“The record numbers today show what is achievable when vaccine administration is done in an efficient manner from the Centre. There is adequate supply going ahead and the onus is now on the state governments to mobilise their resources and do the vaccination exercise at a fast speed. Some states have not been able to step up their game yet,” a top central government official told News18.
Over 55 lakh jabs today were given to the 18-44 age category, indicating that the young queued up for vaccination in big numbers as the supplies for them have improved.
Five BJP-ruled states — Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana — contributed to over 50 per cent of the total jabs administered today, after announcing special drives.
Madhya Pradesh has, in fact, clocked close to 15 lakh jabs, surpassing the initial target it had fixed to give 10 lakh jabs today.
All these states had set up more vaccination centers today and made preparations in their districts to bump by the vaccination figures.
MORE VACCINE CENTRES IN STATES
Nearly 68,000 vaccination centres were operational across the country today, including over 8,000 in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka apiece and nearly 8,500 in Uttar Pradesh.
Haryana, which had fixed a target of 2.5 lakh jabs, clocked over 4.7 lakh jabs, while Gujarat recorded nearly 5 lakh jabs.
Karnataka was able to vaccinate over 10 lakh people today, while Uttar Pradesh clocked 6.6 lakh jabs — up from its initial target of 6 lakh jabs.
Nearly 80 lakh vaccinations in a day is a big increase from the levels in May when daily jabs had plunged to as low as 15 lakh on some days.
The Centre, upon insistence of the Congress and some chief ministers of opposition-ruled states, had opened up vaccinations for the 18-44 age group from May 1 and asked states to procure vaccines for them at their own cost, while the Centre continued to provide states free vaccines for the 45+ age group. This led to the supplies drying up.
The Centre, citing how the vaccine exercise was better administered under its control earlier, reversed the policy earlier this month with Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing that the Centre will now also foot the cost of the 18-44 age group vaccination and provide free vaccines for all to the states.
News18 had earlier reported that the Centre has been aiming for daily vaccinations in the country to touch 10 million from August 1 and a consistent level of 50 lakh-plus vaccinations is expected in end-June till early-July. Thereafter, daily vaccinations are also likely to gradually increase.
Meanwhile, PM Modi took to Twitter to laud the country for its “record-breaking vaccination numbers”.