Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The Madhya Pradesh government on Tuesday decided to float a global tender for procuring one crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines which will be used to inoculate people in the age group of 18 to 44 years.
“Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has directed the state Health Department to float a global tender for the procurement of Covaxin and Covishield after assessing their demand and requirement,” Mishra told reporters after attending the meeting of the council of ministers.
Mishra said the CM has also decided to constitute five groups of ministers to look after various aspects related to the pandemic such as unlocking the "corona curfew"; vaccination; spreading awareness related to the pandemic among others.
Meanwhile, the state government has issued a release stating that the Cabinet has authorized the Madhya Pradesh Health Corporation to purchase one crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines, which will be used to vaccinate people in the age group of 18 to 44 years.
A decision has been taken to form a high-level committee that will examine the technical aspects of the tendering process for the purchase of vaccines and approve the financial proposal, the release said.
"After the technical examination, the financial proposals of parties will be examined. A proposal for fixing the rate at which the vaccines should be purchased will be presented before the council of ministers for approval," it said.
Meanwhile, Chouhan, in a video shared on Twitter, said the number of COVID-19 cases is on the decline in Madhya Pradesh. "On Tuesday, 2,422 new COVID-19 cases were recorded while 7,373 persons recovered from the infection. The recovery rate has improved to 92.68 per cent in the state," the chief minister said.
He said 15 districts have reported less than ten cases while only one case each is reported in Bhind and Agar Malwa districts.
"It is a big achievement that the case positivity rate in 34 districts in the state is less than five per cent. If the district administration and crisis management groups continue to work like this, Madhya Pradesh will be able to control the coronavirus by May 31. Our efforts are to bring down the cases by May 31. After that we will be able to start unlocking from June 1,” he added.
Chouhan said that irrespective of unlocking, the testing for coronavirus will remain in the range of 75,000-80,000 tests (per day).
As of Monday, Madhya Pradesh's COVID-19 tally stood at 7,67,274 while the overall death toll was 7,618, as per the state health department.
The central government had recently passed the responsibility of procuring vaccines to states through global tender. Earlier, some states including Delhi, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Maharashtra floated global tender, but the major vaccine manufacturing companies refused to entertain the states.
Briefing the cabinet decisions, spokesperson of state cabinet Narottam Mishra said the health department has been told to float a global tender to meet demands of Covid-19 vaccine.
Besides, the state government has also decided to constitute five cabinet sub-committees to deal with Covid-19 situation in Madhya Pradesh. Though, the names of the committee and its members remain to be announced, Mishra said each committee will be assigned separate work.
The decision of constituting sub-committees has been taken to deal with unlock process, oxygen shortage, availability of proper treatment, vaccination and recruitment in health department.
Mishra further said chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has instructed all ministers to visit their respective districts, they are in-charge for Covid-19, and hold a meeting with crisis management committee.
“As unlocking process is to start from June 1, all ministers have been asked to discuss all issues related to their districts with the crisis management committee and submit a report to the state cabinet sub-committee. The decision on the unlock process will be taken by the cabinet sub-committee following recommendation of the district crises management committee,” Mishra said.
Apart from these two major decisions, the government has given green signal for recruitment in health department and age relaxation in Covid-19 appointment scheme on compassionate ground.
(With inputs from Agencies)
