Has AP government even placed an order for vaccines?

The shortage of vaccines all over the country is nothing new to be talked about. However, what’s interesting to note is that the central government and the state government of Andhra Pradesh are behaving in almost the exact same way when it comes to placing an order for vaccine doses.

India is a country with a population of over 130 Crore people. It was recently published by several English daily newspapers that the Center has placed an order for just 12 Crore vaccine doses so far. The Center was quick to respond to these headlines, and trashed them all, saying that it has placed an adequate amount of order, which would be enough to cover vaccination until July.

On the other hand, the Andhra Pradesh government has not responded to anyone’s comments. While it is known that Jagan has spoken to the management of Reddy’s Labs – which is manufacturing Russia’s Sputnik vaccine, and Serum Institute’s vaccine, and with the management of Bharat Biotech – which is manufacturing covaxin.

It has come to light that AP has not placed an order for a single dose of vaccine, and it is being said that there is no guarantee that the government will place an order for any vaccine doses any time soon, owing to the financial crunch that the government of AP is going through currently. No vaccine manufacturing company would roll out doses without advance payments, and the government of AP does not seem to be in a position to pay any advances right now.

The government has already received a lot of backlash for cutting a single day’s salary from government employees salary, and sources say that Jagan announced that vaccination could be done until February, because of the lack of proper funds for the government.