"While Maharashtra has the highest number of patients in the country, Maharashtra should get the highest number of vaccines. However, this is being done on purpose. Some people in Delhi seem to want the public health system in Maharashtra to not work properly," alleged NCP state president and water resources minister Jayant Patil.
Patil in a series of tweet slammed the Central government and wrote,"Maharashtra has been witnessing an unprecedented crisis since last year.From the very beginning Maharashtra's Health Department, Health Minister Hon. Rajesh Tope and administration are fighting this crisis with vigor with limited support of the central government."
"The letter circulated by the Union Health Minister yesterday, is only hatred towards Maharashtra. The role of central government is non cooperative with MahaVikas Aghadi government as we does not have similar ideology. The Union Health Minister did not have complete information about Maharashtra or he was given incomplete information. I doubt whether attempts are being made to defame Maharashtra by issuing circulars before ascertaining the proper information of State. Maharashtra has received 85 lakh vaccines but the population of Maharashtra is 12.30 crore & the number of active patients is approx 4.73 lakhs. On the other hand Gujarat gets 80 lakh vaccines, its population is 6.50 crore & the number of active patients is approx 17 thousand. While Maharashtra has the highest number of patients in the country, it should get the highest number of vaccines, but this is not allowed on purpose. It seems, some people in Delhi wants that the public health system in Maharashtra not to function properly," wrote Patil.
Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Thursday held a press conference on the issue of closure of many vaccination centers in the state due to non-availability of doses of corona vaccine.Earlier, he said that the state is facing a vaccine shortage and has requested 40 lakh doses every week from the Centre.
"I talked to Dr Harshavardhan immediately after this, even Sharad Pawar talked to him. I raised issue of discrimination with us. We have most number active patients, positivity rate and death with 12 crore population. Why we are given so few vaccines?," said Rajesh Tope.
"Harshvardhan Ji assured me that corrections will be done soon. We are still waiting. We want 1.6 crore vaccine dosages per month & 40 lakh every week because we are vaccinating 6 lakh people every day," said Rajesh Tope.
The health minister further said,"According to the latest release order of vaccines from Centre, Maharashtra has been given 7.5 lakh vaccine dosages only. While Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana etc have been given far more vaccines than Maharashtra."