Global bids for Covid-19 vaccine: Only Sputnik left in fray

A woman gets the jab at Nair hospital. Pic/Suresh Karkera

The BMC has received nine proposals against its global tender for one crore doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, but all from suppliers, not makers. As it shut the window to more bids on Tuesday, civic officials will now start scrutinising the proposals sent by distributors and suppliers. With one potential supplier of AstraZeneca shots withdrawing from the race, the corporation now has seven proposals for Sputnik V, one for Sputnik Light, while another is ready to supply whichever is available.

A crippling shortage of vaccines has slowed down BMC's efforts to inoculate Mumbaikars. Pic/Satej Shinde

The civic body will now examine the business relationship between those bidders who are willing to supply vaccines and companies that actually produce them. To ensure timely delivery of the jabs depending on the pace of its vaccination programme, the corporation will also check the stock availability with the supplier and its procurement plan.

With a huge number of doses and a lot of money at stake, the civic body fears that documentation could slow down the procurement. Civic sources said the proposals received by them are not complete. Their biggest concern is that not even a single bid is from manufacturers directly. They are from distributors who do not have direct certificates from the vaccine makers in India or abroad.

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However, BMC chose not to extend its global tender as already 21 days have passed since it was put online for companies to come forward with bids. While a section of civic officials is hopeful that something fruitful might come from these 9 proposals, there are limited chances of this happening, said sources.

A BMC official involved with the vaccine procurement process said, "We will be starting the scrutiny of these 9 proposals and all the documents that have been submitted so far will be closely verified. We want to be rest assured that we will get the vaccines delivered in three weeks of finalising the distributor. So far, we have not received any bids directly from any of the Sputnik Indian manufacturers. Had that been done, it would have been an easy task for us to procure vaccines."

Zero
No. of bids for AstraZeneca shots