Raipur: Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel of Chhattisgarh, Congress government has borne the cost of vaccinations vaccinating the people at their own expense since the Center refused to provide vaccines to Chhattisgarh. Under CM Baghel with his massive vaccination drive, there was a huge drop in COVID numbers, and all industries are running, with COVID sanitization and guidelines.
There is a remarkable drop in COVID yet all the industries are working with special passes for employers, schools converted into COVID shelters.
Chhattisgarh is currently seeing a good comedown in its daily Coronavius caseload, and lessened deaths from earlier. The state has until now vaccinated over 5.94 million people of which 4,957,168 have received the first dose and 984,556 have been inoculated with both doses.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said on Thursday that the state was prepared for the third phase of the vaccination drive against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) from May 1 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement, but the vaccine doses are still unavailable. Under the third phase of the vaccination drive, doses are being administered to beneficiaries between 18-44 years.
Replying to the debate on the motion of thanks on the governor’s address in the Assembly, Baghel said, instead of focusing on only three crore people, the Centre should provide free coronavirus vaccines.
“On May 1, we got 150,000 doses and on May 9, we received the second consignment of only 350,000 doses. Now neither the Centre nor the vaccine manufacturers are able to tell when we will get more doses,” Baghel was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
He also said that the state government placed orders for vaccines with the Serum Institute of India (SII) as well as Bharat Biotech. “But the consignments are arriving in the state at the behest of the Centre. There is no specific information on when we will get the doses.”
On May 9, the Chhattisgarh government announced that journalists, employees, lawyers of the state government and state public sector undertaking (PSU) employees will be treated as frontline workers and will be vaccinated on priority.
Replying to the debate on the motion of thanks on the governor’s address in the Assembly, Baghel said, instead of focusing on only three crore people, the Centre should provide free coronavirus vaccine to all 135 crore people in India.
He also said, “Are you going to give free vaccines to Bihar only? People of Chhattisgarh have caused loss to you (by electing Congress) so you will not give free vaccine here? We don’t have a dearth of funds. We have kept (funds) for it.”
Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has proved his mettle, dedication and hard work and is a shining example of what a chief minister should be like. Not only did he ensure free vaccines for all with a massive drive, but incidentally brought down the death rates and caseload in Chattisgarh but he also organized the workforce and industries to function under strong COVID-19 guidelines to ensure the industries are vibrant and the economy is strong.