The Centre has sent 2.5 lakh doses of Covishield vaccine to Odisha on Saturday following consistent pressure by the state government to send fresh supplies after vaccine shortage.

Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik had raised the issue with the Prime Minister during the latter’s interaction with chief ministers to review the corona situation in the country.

“Our health minister and additional chief secretary had written to the Centre about this. However, our chief minister’s personal equations with the Prime Minister also helped. We are assured of getting more vaccines in the coming days,” said a senior official of the state government.

Fresh supply of vaccines has come just a day ahead of the state’s celebration of Tika Utsava (Vaccine Festival) on Sunday with the aim to inoculate the maximum number of eligible people in the state.

Director family and health welfare Bijay Panigrahi said: “All the vaccines will be sent to the districts by this evening and administration of vaccines will continue from Monday.”

Additional chief secretary and head of health and family welfare department, P.K. Mohapatra told The Telegraph, “We have already administered vaccines to 40 lakh people. We need more vaccines. We have asked for 25 lakh doses. It’s our genuine demand. We are hopeful that more vaccines will reach the state soon.”

Even though the state has stepped up its fight against the coronavirus the number of deaths have been increasing with each passing day. Odisha has reported two deaths in the last 24 hours. These Covid patients died while undergoing treatment. With this the total casualty figure in the corona pandemic in the state has gone up to 1,926.

Police have also stepped up the Mask Abhiyana after Naveen launched the drive on Friday.

The Odisha government has increased the amount of penalty for not wearing masks in public places from Rs 1000 to Rs 2000. As per the notification issued by the government the violators will have to pay Rs 2000 for first two violations and Rs 5,000 for subsequent offences.

“We have also deployed plain cloth police personnel to spot the violators and enforce the mask wearing regulations strictly,” said deputy commissioner of police (DCP-Security) Nirmal Satpathy.