New Delhi, January 11: State Govternmets will not bear the costs of first phase of vaccination and the Central Government will bear all the expenses, announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi during an interaction with all the Chief Ministers on vaccine rollout on Monday during very video conferencing.
In the first phase three crore health and frontline workers will be vaccinated starting January 16.
“Health workers, from both government and private sector, will be the first ones to receive the vaccine. Along with them, Safai Karmacharis, other Front Line Workers, police and paramilitary, Home Guards, Disaster Management Volunteers and other jawans in Civil Defence, and Revenue Officials associated with containment and surveillance, will also also receive the vaccine in the first stage. The total number of such personnel is around three crore,” said the Prime Minister.
“State Governments will not have to bear any cost towards vaccinating these three crore people in the first stage. Centre will bear this cost,” he added.
In the second stage, those above 50 years of age, and those below 50 years of age with comorbidities or with high risk of infection, will be vaccinated. Preparation for infrastructure and logistics has been done with all States and UTs, the Prime Minister said, adding that dry runs for vaccination has also been done across the country. He said that our new preparations and SOPs for COVID have to be linked up with our old experiences of running universal immunization programmes and conducting elections throughout the country. He noted that the booth level strategy used for elections needs to be used here as well.
Prime Minister also highlighted the importance of identification and monitoring of those who need to be vaccinated. For this, Co-Win digital platform has been created. With the help of Aadhaar, beneficiaries will be identified as well as timely second dosage will be ensured. Prime Minister underlined the significance of ensuring that real time data related to vaccination gets uploaded on Co-Win.
After a person receives the first dose of vaccination, Co-Win will immediately generate a digital vaccination certificate. This certificate will also act as a reminder for the second dose, after which, a final certificate will be given.
Prime Minister said that the vaccination drive in India is also significant since several other countries are going to follow us. He said that vaccination for COVID-19 has been going on in about 50 countries since past 3-4 weeks, and till now, only about 2.5 crore people have received vaccination. India aims to achieve vaccination for 30 crore people in the next few months, he said.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the country has performed better than most of the other countries in facing COVID under the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers. He added that the coordination displayed by the States in this endeavour till now should also continue in the vaccination drive as well.
