Chandigarh: Punjab's Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Friday said he has ordered a probe into the Oppositions' allegations that the state government has been diverting Covid vaccines to private hospitals.
Sidhu made the statement when he was specifically asked about the Oppositions' allegation.
What I have learnt through media, I have already ordered a probe and we will order a proper inquiry. We will keep the issue before the chief minister, he said.
Without going into the specifics of the allegations, he said he will first wait for the entire picture to emerge.
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On the opposition allegations, Sidhu, at the outset, said the vaccine programme is not concerned with his department.
The vaccine programme is not concerned with my Health Department and is under the control of the Chief Secretary and Vikas Garg, who is the state's nodal officer for the vaccination drive, said Sidhu.
He said his department conducts testing, treatment and administering vaccines.
As much as the supply of vaccines is made available to our department, we have been administering them free of cost in our hospitals and in the health camps which the department conducts, he said.
On Friday, the Punjab government has also withdrawn its earlier order of providing "one-time" limited vaccine doses to the 18-44 age group population through private hospitals after allegations by opposition of "diverting" Covaxin doses at "hefty margins", sparked a row.
A brief letter - signed by Vikas Garg, the state-in-charge for vaccination - said the order "has not been taken in the right spirit and is hereby withdrawn".
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"Further, it has been decided that the private hospitals should return forthwith all the vaccine doses available with them. The doses which they have utilised as of date should also be returned, once they get supplies from the manufacturers," the order added.
Addressing a press conference, Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said, "Chief Minister ordered to recall the decision and recall all vaccines which were given to private hospitals, the government will rectify its mistake as soon as possible. The rate was not decided, we will vaccinate people free of cost, Covaxin was given to them, we received through you this news and we returned the order."
"The number of vaccines we received through the centre which we used and in future, we received more vaccine and we will use. 42,000 vaccines were given to the private hospitals but only 600 vaccines are used by them," he added.
Punjab's opposition party SAD had on Thursday accused the state's Congress government of diverting Covid vaccines to private hospitals at hefty margins.
Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, in a statement here, had alleged that vaccine doses were not available in the state but they were being sold to private institutions instead of being given free of cost to the common man.
He claimed that a Covaxin dose costing Rs 400 to the state was being sold to private institutions at Rs 1,060.
He said the private hospitals are further charging people Rs 1,560 for each dose.
This amounts to a cost of Rs 6,000 to Rs 9,000 per family for a single dose.
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Badal had alleged that in Mohali alone, 35,000 doses were sold to private institutions to earn a profit of nearly Rs two crore in a single day.
He said it was immoral for the Congress government to make a profit from the sale of vaccines.
The government was also punishing people by forcing them to cough up Rs 1,560 per dose during a time of economic slowdown, he alleged.
Badal had demanded a high court-monitored probe into how the Congress government was allegedly creating an artificial shortage of vaccines for the common man by selling its doses at a hefty profit to private hospitals, the SAD said in a statement.
(with inputs from agencies)
