Even as most states report shortfall of vaccines and people continue to face trouble getting slots, the central government is not keen on the door-to-door vaccination programme.
This is largely due to the complexity of supply chain management, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Pramod Kumar Mishra said.
“We must recognise that Covid vaccination is under emergency use authorisation requiring vaccination supply chains, local infrastructure and equipment, trained medical manpower... This is not akin to the door-to-door immunisation programme we are now familiar with for long known diseases such as polio,” Mishra told The Times of India.
Earlier this week, the Bombay High Court had reportedly said that it was disheartened and disappointed with the Centre's insensitivity and with the Mumbai civic body for not starting door-to-door Covid-19 vaccination for senior citizens and specially-abled, bed-ridden and wheelchair-bound people.
Over the significant decrease in the daily vaccination rate for the past few days, Mishra said it isn’t because of the change in strategy or policies. “In the early phase of vaccination, we had allowed stockpiling from before the vaccination began. That is why we were able to inoculate more people per day as delivery capabilities were systematically ramped,” he told the publication.
He added that the government aims at vaccinating all the adults by the end of this year.
Kumar's statement comes at a time when Opposition parties have been accusing the government of sending vaccines "meant for Indian citizens" to foreign countries and questioning its statement that India will be in a position to vaccinate all of its adult population against the coronavirus by the end of 2021.
The cumulative number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the country exceeded 19.50 crore on Sunday, according to official data.