(THE NEWSMAN OF INDIA.COM)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his address to the nation on Monday the Centre would take over the task of vaccination from state governments and provide Covid-19 vaccines free of cost to all adults from later this month. “It has been decided that from June 21, all adults over the age of 18 will be vaccinated free,” PM Modi said in a televised address.

PM Modi said the Centre will buy 75 per cent of the total vaccine production from manufacturers, will also bear the responsibility of 25 per cent of the states’ quota and give it free of cost to the state governments. “This arrangement will be implemented in the coming two weeks. In these two weeks, the central and state governments will together make necessary preparations according to the new guidelines,” PM Modi said.

“State governments will not have to spend anything on the vaccine. Crores of people of the country have got free vaccine till now and now people of 18 years of age will also join it,” he added.

The Prime Minister said private hospitals can continue to procure 25 per cent of vaccines but their charge would be capped at ₹150 per dose.

PM Modi’s address to the nation as cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) are on the decline after a deadly surge in the last two months and several states have eased the strict restrictions.

This is the biggest pandemic in the last hundred years and modern world had neither seen nor experienced such an pandemic, he said.

“Our country has fought together on many fronts during such a big global pandemic—from making ventilators to preparing a network of laboratories—to create a new medical infrastructure during the pandemic which has been the worst in the last century. The country fought on a war-footing,” PM said in his address.