It is an irony that the Supreme Court had to remind the Centre that it has to procure COVID-19 vaccines and distribute them throughout the country instead of leaving the States to fend for themselves since Article 1 of the Constitution says India or Bharat “shall be a Union of States”. It is the BJP-led government which has been clamouring for the past few years for uniform systems for the entire country for different facilities. Starting from One Nation One Tax, One Nation One Ration Card, One Nation One ID (Aadhaar) Card to floating thoughts on One Nation One Election and One Nation One Language, the government has left no stone unturned to create an atmosphere of forced uniformity under the guise of Unity. And, of course, the Uniform Civil Code to dispense with the prevalent different personal and religious laws must not be forgotten.
However, when it comes to real welfare work such as vaccinating the entire population against the lethal coronavirus playing havoc with the people irrespective of their religious, social and economic differences, the current dispensation at the Centre keeps mum on a policy such as “one country one vaccine (supplier)” and abdicates its responsibility to save the citizens from the pandemic. In fact, the citizens have been thrown to the wolves. This has resulted in private players fleecing money taking advantage of the woefully inadequate supply of vaccines and panic gripping the people.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s letter May 31 to 11 chief ministers requesting them to close ranks to press the Centre to procure COVID-19 vaccines and distribute them to States free of cost only highlights the helplessness of the states and the Centre’s criminal dereliction of duty. The need of the hour is, indeed, for the States to jointly approach the Centre and force it to concede the genuine demand.
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The Supreme Court Amicus Curiae Jaideep Gupta put the case graphically during the hearing of a suo motu COVID case before the Bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, L Nageswara Rao and Ravindra Bhat May 31 that according to government affidavit the total vaccine capacity, including Sputnik, is 15 crore per month. Going by this rate it is impossible for the Centre to achieve its target of vaccinating the whole population by the end of December, 2021 or January, 2022. The government seems to be prevaricating when it announces this deadline in the apex court and outside. The suspicion about its real intent stems from the fact that it has not yet spelt out how the production capacity has increased or likely to increase in the next few months so the largest number of persons can be vaccinated within the deadline. While the Centre is loath to state the actual vaccine capacity, the Amicus Curiae has arrived at 15 crore per month on the basis of figures from the Serum Institute of India, Bharat Biotech and Sputnik. The government has even said some other vaccines are in the stage of development. If that be so, it may be unethical to give such hope to the people since the new products would require ample time at the testing stages.
As the Centre keeps the citizens guessing about the availability of vaccines, distress calls are coming from people in the age group of 18 to 44 that they can’t register their names for vaccines online because the apps show that within two minutes all slots are booked.
What is shocking is that the Centre has changed the country’s age-old, time-tested vaccination policy being followed since Independence. Under Entry 29 of the Concurrent List of the Constitution the responsibility of supplying vaccines free to the citizens is at the doorstep of the Centre and the latter can’t pass it on to the States as it has done in the case of COVID-19 vaccination. Some States have agreed to provide vaccines free to the age group from 18 to 44, but this is an ad hoc measure and no government policy.
In fact, the government’s very policy of dividing the population into two age groups – 45 years and above and 18 years and above – is arbitrary and irrational. The argument that people above 45 years are more vulnerable than the younger population is not tenable anymore since the younger generation too is falling prey to the virus during the second wave. Moreover, if the Centre could roll out vaccines free for the older group, what prevents it from doing so in case of the younger population?
Till now about 3 per cent of the country’s population has been vaccinated and according to a rough estimate 70 per cent of them hail from urban areas. This is because of the digital divide and the concentration of private health facilities in urban areas. The government acted thoughtlessly by making online registration mandatory as it left bulk of the rural population out of the coverage for inadequate digital facilities. The price differences of the vaccines are also excluding a majority of the population from getting the jabs.
The next big issue is that of the States floating independent global tenders for vaccines. Not only has Punjab been rebuffed by Moderna which said it will deal only with the Central government, Orissa’s tender has failed to receive any response from any manufacturer. Even domestic producers have preferred to stay away from these tenders.
The other big issue is payment for these imported vaccines will require Reserve Bank of India (RBI) releasing those huge amounts of foreign exchange in proper time. No one, as of now, has discussed or cleared the RBI’s take on this matter.
