Jharkhand will receive close to 25 lakh free doses of Covid-19 vaccines from the Centre in July, while over 8 lakh doses will be made available for purchase by private healthcare facilities in the tribal state, officials said on Sunday.

As per details shared by the health department, the Centre will provide as many as 24,85,150 doses of vaccines free of cost to the state, and at least 8,28,390 doses will be earmarked for purchase by private hospitals and diagnostic clinics across Jharkhand.

The Narendra Modi-led Centre had recently announced that it will provide free vaccine for all residents above the age of 18 years to all the states and Union territories across India from June 21 onwards. So far, the states had to purchase vaccines for beneficiaries in the age bracket of 18 years to 44 years, while the Centre provided free vaccines for beneficiaries above the age of 44 years.

The Centre, as per details with the state health department, has assured supply of 20,62,310 doses of Covishield and 4,22,840 doses of Covaxin free of cost to Jharkhand. Private institutions in the state will be able to purchase from 6,87,440 Covishield doses and 1,40,950 doses of Covaxin made available to the state for paid usage.

The nodal officer for health department’s Information, Education and Communication (IEC) wing, Dr Siddharth Tripathi, said on Sunday that the state currently has the infrastructure to administer at least 3 lakh vaccines every day and using the free vaccines provided by the Centre will not be a tough ask.

“We currently have the infrastructure to administer close to 1 crore vaccine jabs every month. We are also working on improving facilities in the state to ensure that all the vaccine doses provided by the Centre in a given month are used in that month itself and there is no issue of backlog,” Tripathi said.

As per data with the National Health Mission (NHM), there are at least 3,377 government-run vaccination centres in Jharkhand where jabs are administered free of cost to beneficiaries. The number of vaccination centres will be gradually increased once the supply of vaccine from the Centre increases, officials said.

As per government data, the state has so far received 63,80,310 doses of Covid vaccines and used 55,32,223 of them. On an average, at least 1 lakh residents have received either Covishield or Covaxin jab every day in the state in the past one week.