Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has urged the Centre to ensure that the states are provided with vaccines free of cost and not made to compete with private players to purchase from the open market as announced by the Union government.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vijayan on Tuesday sought reassurance from the Centre on free supply of vaccines in view of its announcement on Monday that 50 per cent of doses would be distributed to states and in the open market while the remaining 50 per cent would be earmarked for the Union government.

“The state governments have constitutional obligation in the health sector and do need an assured quota of Covid-19 vaccine which has to be provided free in the pandemic situation. It is imperative that vaccines are provided to the states as a public good, free of cost,” Vijayan wrote.

The Kerala chief minister highlighted the additional financial burden faced by the states due to the handling of the pandemic and noted it was imperative to provide vaccines free of cost.

“The state governments are already facing additional financial commitments from the consequences of the pandemic. Given the present scenario, we have to provide vaccine to the public free of cost. As the economic downturn is still persisting, the additional burden of purchasing Covid vaccine will place considerable strain on state finances,” Vijayan wrote.

The requirement for vaccines is set to increase manifold as the Centre on Monday announced that everyone above 18 years of age would be eligible for Covid jabs from May 1. While Vijayan welcomed the decision to provide vaccines to more people, he noted that his state was already facing shortage of vaccine supply.

“I would like to bring to your notice that we had requested 50 lakh doses of vaccine to implement our vaccination plan. We have received only 5.5 lakh doses, due to which we have been constrained to stop on-the-spot registration affecting our effort to deal with the rapid surge,” Vijayan stated, urging Modi to allot the remaining doses at the earliest.

The chief minister sought a unified government channel involving all states for distributing vaccines.

“Though the policy states that the government of India will provide vaccine free of cost to the state governments from its 50 per cent quota based on criteria, the states need a reassurance that they will not be left to compete with open market players. Instead of having a government of India channel, we need to have a government channel which will include the state governments through whom the vaccine will be distributed.”

He also called for fixing the price for a specific quota of vaccines meant for the open market. “The open market distributors may be permitted to have a specified quota of vaccine for which affordable price has to be fixed so that unscrupulous players do not exploit the public,” Vijayan added.