71 Vaccination Centres In Mumbai Shut Due To Shortage, Protests

More than 70 vaccination centres have shut down in Mumbai after running out of Covid vaccine doses.

Among them is a jumbo vaccination centre at BKC, one of Mumbai's most important commercial zones. As the centre shut down, protesters were seen outside.

"From Day 1 we used to get vaccines a day ahead as buffer stock, till yesterday we got a sufficient number of vials for this centre. Last night we were expecting to get today's dose but it has not come. Now we have only 160 doses," said Rajesh Dere, Dean at the centre.

Mumbai: People gather outside BKC Jumbo vaccination Centre as the centre runs out of #COVID19 vaccine doses. pic.twitter.com/1OvGKdZ2yO

— ANI (@ANI) April 9, 2021

Mumbai has 120 centres to inoculate people. Some 71 have run out of vaccines, according to civic body BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation).

Forty-nine of the centres are run by the Maharashtra government and the BMC and 40,000 to 50,000 people are inoculated at each.

"There are several vaccination centers that have zero vaccines now and vaccination has stopped there...I have come to know that some 76,000 to 1 Lakh doses are about to reach Mumbai by today but I don't have any official information on this," Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar said today.

The Maharashtra government has been flagging the shortage of vaccines, which, it says, have forced centres to shut down in cities like Mumbai, Satara, Sangli and Panvel.  

State Health Minister Rajesh Tope yesterday alleged that Maharashtra was receiving fewer doses as a proportion of its population compared to other states like BJP-ruled Gujarat.

Mr Tope said Maharashtra, which has recorded the most number of Covid cases per day in India for weeks, needs 40 lakh doses a week and 1.6 crore vaccines a month. "Maharashtra has double the population of Gujarat. Gujarat has got one crore doses and we have got one crore doses," he said.

He also claimed that after he raised what he called "discrimination" by the centre, Maharashtra's allocation had been increased from 7 lakh to 17 lakh.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan says Maharashtra is hiding its own failures beneath claims of vaccine shortage.

"Hue and cry by certain states about partisanship by the Union Government is just a farce, an attempt to hide their own incompetence. Maharashtra and Rajasthan are two of the top three States based on allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine doses. Both are non-BJP governed states," Harsh Vardhan tweeted last evening.