The State government of Odisha on Wednesday announced cancelling the global e-tender floated for procuring Covid-19 vaccines from manufacturers across the world. The Odisha State Medical Corporation Ltd has issued a notification regarding this announcement.
The development comes just two days after the Centre rolled out its free vaccination policy under which the government is providing free Covid vaccines to all Indian citizens above 18 years of age.
In the first day of the country's aggressive vaccination drive against COVID-19, a world record of nearly 81 lakh doses were administered to people. In Odisha, a whopping 3.32 lakh people were administered vaccine jabs in a single day.
As per official sources, the Centre has offered to supply vaccines to the State based on the rate of consumption and wastage, more vaccine doses are likely to be available for disposal.
Odisha government too has asked the district and other civic body authorities to fully utilise their capacity and continue vaccinating its target of over 3 lakh people each day by expediting the number of both online and offline site sessions.
On May 15, the State government had floated a global online tender to 3.8 crore vaccine doses from leading manufacturers across the globe. However, the proposal received poor response from the manufacturers prompting the government to extend the deadline for submission of bids till June 4. On the last day of the tender, Odisha State Medical Corporation Limited also received two bids.
A day later, the State Health Services Director informed that a decision on the technical clearance for the bids of two vaccine manufacturing companies was under consideration.
As per official sources, Odisha has so far vaccinated vaccine doses to over 1 crore people.