Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Refuting claims that the Centre has failed to provide funds for vaccination, the Finance Ministry on Monday said provisioning Rs 35,000 crore-expenditure for vaccines in the Union Budget for 2021-22, under the title ‘Transfers to States’, does in no way inhibit the central government from using the funds to buy Covid-19 shots.
“The use of the Demand, titled ‘Transfers to States’, in no way implies that expenditure cannot be incurred by the Centre,” the ministry said.
This amount (Rs.35,000 crore) has been earmarked under the Demand for Grants No. 40, titled ‘Transfers to States’. It has been done for several administrative advantages, including expenditure under such head being exempted from the quarterly control restrictions, the government said in a statement.
Also, it allows the Union government to procure the vaccines and pass them on to the states as grants-in-kind.
Refuting reports claiming that the Centre had done no provision for expenditure on Covid-19 vaccination, the ministry said, “vaccines have actually been, and are being, procured by and paid for by the Centre through this head of account (Demand for Grants No.40 Transfers to States)”.
Since expenditure on the vaccine is a one-off item outside the normal centrally-sponsored schemes of the health ministry, separate funding ensures easy monitoring and management of these funds, it noted.
The amount provided under this head for vaccinations is operated by the Ministry of Health. Vaccines are passed on to the states as grants-in-kind and the actual administration of vaccines is being done by states, it added.
Also, there is enough administrative flexibility to change the nature of the scheme between grants-in-kind and other forms of grants.
Currently, the Centre is providing Covid-19 vaccines free of cost to those who are 45 years of age and above and to all frontline workers. It has so far provided more than 17.56 crore vaccine doses to states/ UTs free of cost.
So far, the Centre had placed orders to procure 26.60 crore Covishield doses for Rs 3,639.67 crore from the Serum Institute of India (SII), and 8 crore doses of Covaxin worth Rs 1,104.78 crore with Bharat Biotech.