Beginning June 21, the Centre will provide free vaccines to everyone above the age of 18. Pre-registration on the government’s CoWin portal will no longer be mandatory and all vaccination centres will be allowed to provide onsite registration.
After several states communicated the difficulties in managing the funding, procurement and logistics of vaccines which affected the pace of the overall vaccination drive, the Centre has changed gears from its 'liberalised and accelerated' policy to a new system wherein it will buy 75 per cent of the vaccines and distribute them among the states free of cost.
States will have the liberty to prioritise the target groups in the 18+ age category factoring the vaccine supply schedule.
The Centre will distribute doses based on population, caseload, vaccine wastage among other factors.
Private hospitals will be able to procure 25% of the vaccine production, however, this time the states will aggregate the demand so that all hospitals receive equitable share.
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