The Punjab government on Friday has taken a
U-turn on the decision of selling Covid-19 vaccine to the private hospitals
after the ruling ‘BJP’ party has leveled profiteering allegations on them.
The government has now withdrawn its decision to provide one-time Covid-19 vaccine doses to the private hospitals for the third phase of vaccination i.e. for the age group of 18-45 years. Reacting to the allegations of profiteering, the govt said its decision “had not been taken in the right spirit.”
Furthermore, all the private hospitals have been directed to return the procured stock of Covid vaccine doses that may have been either used or unused. Additionally, these hospitals can now only get the vaccine doses from the manufacturers in the form of direct supply.
Also, the state govt will refund the amount deposited by the private hospitals for the vaccine procurement.
Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, earlier on Friday said, he will initiate an inquiry and will personally intervene into the allegations leveled on the govt for earning profits from vaccine selling.
Reiterating here, the Centre govt has accused Punjab govt of selling more than 1.40 lakh doses of Covaxin at Rs 400, which the Congress government allegedly sold to 20 private hospitals for Rs 1,000.