Calling on the Centre to play its part in the COVID-19 vaccination drive and urgently procure enough doses to inoculate people in the national capital and across the country, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said that it is time to unite and work as 'Team India' to combat the pandemic.
"This is the time to unite and work for both State and Centre, and not work separately. We need to work as Team India. It is the Centre's responsibility to provide vaccines, not States. If we delay it more, do not know how many more lives will be lost", the Delhi Chief Minister said.
"We should have been manufacturing and stocking up vaccines.. if we'd done that, we may have prevented some of the deaths in the second wave," he added.
Hitting out at the Centre on procuring vaccines, he drew Pakistan analogy and said that states cannot afford to compete among themselves to buy COVID vaccines - any more than being forced to buy individual stores of weapons and ammunition in case of an attack by Pakistan.
"Why isn't this country buying vaccines? We cannot leave that responsibility on the states. Our country is at war against COVID19. If Pakistan attacks India, will we leave states on their own? Will Uttar Pradesh buy its own tanks or Delhi its own arms?" he asked the Central government.
He further informed that there is no COVID vaccine available for the 18-44 age group in the capital city.
"There is no vaccine in Delhi; for 4 days vaccination centres for the 18-44 age group are shut and not just here but across India, several centres are shut. Today when we should have opened new centres, we are shutting the existing ones, which is not good" he said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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