Hyderabad: Telangana IT and industries minister KT Rama Rao (KTR) once again trained his guns on the central government, asking where the Rs.35,000 crore that was earmarked for vaccine procurement has gone. He also slammed the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Centre on the COVID-19 vaccine shortage the country is currently facing.
KTR, who also said that the union government seems to have “no sense of urgency or clear strategy” for its COVID-19 vaccination policy. His comments came during the ‘#AskKTR’ Twitter campaign that he undertoo to answer questions from the public. The IT minister passed some pretty scathing remarks against the Modi government.
“Ask Govt of India that bungled up & created this situation where states are pitted against one another & against pvt sector. They didn’t place orders when they had to & even now don’t want to call for a single tender for the entire country (sic),” was his response, to a Twitter user who asked him “where is my vaccine”.
The IT minister had announced on Sunday that he would take questions from the public on twitter as he had been receiving a lot of questions and suggestions about the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination drive in India. KTR stated that when state governments are reaching out to COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, they are clearly being told that companies would rather deal with one entity, – the government of India.
KTR stated that the Centre “unfortunately seems to have no urgency to go for a global procurement” to all Indian states, while responding to another question. Prior to this, he had asked the Centre to purchase vaccines from other countries which have it in excess.