SFI Impact: Govt Rolls Out A New Vaccine Policy From June

Student Struggle Editorial Team

3 years ago

The Central Executive Committee of the Students’ Federation of India congratulated the people of India over their victory in the battle to ensure free universal vaccinations. SFI had approached the Supreme Court of India on May 10, 2021 through intervention applications (IA. No. 61151/2021,IA. No. 61152/2021,IA. No. 61154/2021,IA. No. 61157/2021), appealing the court to legally intervene in various issues concerning the pandemic and to direct the central government to provide free universal vaccination. Considering the said petition, and similar other petitions the court asked the government to reconsider its vaccine policy and on June 7, 2021 prime minister Narendra Modi was forced to announce a new vaccine policy from June 21, 2021.

Read the statement below :

The Central Executive Committee of the Students’ Federation of India congratulates the people of India over their victory in the battle to ensure free universal vaccinations.

SFI had submitted a petition to the Supreme Court on May 10, 2021, appealing to the court to legally intervene in the matter through directing the central government to provide free universal vaccination. Considering the said petition, the court asked the government to reconsider its vaccine policy. The 3-member bench had taken issue with the Liberalised Vaccine Policy because it was discriminatory to the states and excluded citizens between 18-44 years of age from availing vaccines free of cost.

The government was forced to respond to public pressure and the suggestion by the court. The government has now said that the foolish dual pricing and public procurement policy forcing the states to fend for themselves will be done away. The new policy will ensure that 75% of the vaccines will be procured by the Central Government (which it will distribute to the states) and 25% by private healthcare facilities from the open market. The recent decision to change the vaccine policy from June 21 is to be read as a victory in this light.

It must also be noted that the Central Government is passing the blame of its faulty policy on state governments. The PM’s claim that the state had asked for such a policy is not true as all state government run by opposition parties had written to the Centre to procure vaccines and give them free to the states. It is only the BJP ruled states who accepted this policy. Therefore, it is very clear that the disastrous policy was a brainchild of the PM and his party.

However, the government has still allowed 25% of the vaccine to be procured by private distributors. This will lead to 2 possible scenarios-

The concentration of vaccines in metropoles would be high, owing to it being the stations for mega-hospitals and big private distributors, resulting in efficiencies in distributing vaccines across the country, or,
If the central government factors in the amount of vaccine collected by private distributors in the state while distributing vaccines, then it will lead to a shortage of free vaccines to the working class and poor.
As a result, we believe that the government must strike the private procurement clause down and ensure effective and efficient vaccine distribution through public sector channels. The network of private hospitals can be used to disperse vaccines provided by the government to the public free of cost. Moreover, the current vaccine policy can be put into jeopardy by the greed of private manufacturers of the vaccine. Any attempt to slow down production to create a fake shortage of the vaccine must be cracked down upon immediately. The SFI has, as a result, proposed that the government should invoke Section 92(3) of the Patents Act, 1970, to empower the Controller of Patents to issue Compulsory Licences so that vaccine production can be increased.

Sd/-
V P Sanu (President)
Mayukh Biswas (General Secretary)