BMC to float global tenders for Covid-19 vaccines: Mumbai Mayor

Photo for representational purpose

In a major initiative, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will issue global tenders to procure around five million Covid-19 vaccines, Mumbai Mayor Kishore Pednekar announced here on Monday.

She said that the tenders would be floated in two days and the doses procured shall be used to administer free jabs to all Mumbaikars.

Last month, the Maharashtra government had indicated that it would issue international tenders to procure various drugs like Remdesivir to tide over the shortages here.

Maharashtra Tourism and Environment minister Aaditya Thackeray also posted on Twitter regarding the move.

Earlier on Monday, a delegation of Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Leader of Opposition in the Council, Pravin Darekar called on BMC commissioner IS Chahal and demanded the civic body should issue independent global tenders to enable free vaccination for the people of the city.

The vaccination drive in Mumbai and other parts of the state has been erratic in view of short supply of doses in the past few weeks, and the load has increased after the 18-44 age groups were cleared for the jabs from May 1.

In order to avoid rush at vaccination centres, the BMC has also introduced 'drive-in' facility for senior citizens at Kohinoor Parking Lot and a few more similar centres shall come up shortly.

Facing an acute shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, the Odisha government on Monday also decided to float a global tender for procuring the vaccine to inoculate the states entire population, Odisha Chief Secretary S C Mohapatra said.

"It is felt that complete vaccination is the best way to protect precious lives of the people. Therefore, the Cabinet allowed the state government to go for global tender and get vaccines at the earliest," Mohapatra said.

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever.