Mamata Banerjee on Thursday urged the Centre to send at least 1.5 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses to the state every month and wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to inform him that Bengal was facing a problem in carrying out the inoculation drive because of irregular supply of doses from Delhi.

“We need at least 1.5 crore vaccine doses every month to complete vaccination of all eligible persons in the state at the earliest. Even if we get 2 crore doses a month, it would take about six months to complete the vaccination drive,” the chief minister said at Nabanna on Thursday.

Mamata said the state had administered a total of 2.5 crore doses of vaccines, of which 1.8 crore were first doses.

“This means only 70 lakh of about 7 crore eligible people (above 18 years) have been fully vaccinated. So, we could give two doses of vaccines to only 10 per cent of the eligible persons, which is too meagre to prevent the spread of the virus if the third wave hits. That is why the chief minister is worried,” said a senior government official.

In her letter to the Prime Minister, the chief minister mentioned that the state was administering around 3 lakh doses a day but it was also becoming very tough to maintain the pace because of irregular supply of vaccines.

Mamata also wrote that the state was not getting vaccines according to its requirements even though the Centre promised to supply more vaccine doses to the state.

“As per intimation received from the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, the state has been allocated 73 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines for the month of July, 2021.

But unfortunately, 25 lakh doses have only been received till date in the current month,” the chief minister wrote.

Mamata also pointed out that the state could not use its full potential of administering 10 lakh vaccines a day only because of the shortage.

“We have a capacity that can vaccinate more than 10 lakh people every day, provided sufficient quantities of vaccine is made available,” the letter reads.

In her letter, Mamata urged Modi to give instructions to increase supply of vaccines to the state so that a substantial portion of the population could be vaccinated before the third wave.

“As per our assessment, the state needs around 11.5 crore more doses.... Hence, we would earnestly request you to kindly give necessary instructions so that Covid-19 vaccination supply to our state is increased,” the chief minister wrote.