Vax pricing ‘arbitrary’, Bengal moves SC seeking uniformity

Kolkata: The Bengal government on Friday moved the Supreme Court challenging the differential vaccine prices as “arbitrary and discriminatory”, and seeking the court’s direction to the Centre to cap vaccine prices at a uniform fixed rate.

The state has also urged the court to direct the Centre to factor in the state’s interest while diverting any liquid medical oxygen (LMO) outside the state, in view of an expected spike in requirements. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee also wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, raising her concerns about oxygen availability. She informed him that the oxygen requirement in Bengal had gone up to 470MT per day in the last 24 hours, because of the rising caseload, and this was expected to increase to 550MT per day in the next seven-eight days.

The apex court plea, filed by state chief secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, states that the “basis for arriving at the figures of Rs 400 (now Rs 300) and Rs 600, for Covishield and Covaxin, respectively, is completely opaque and in fact higher than the cost per dose for Covid-19 vaccines across the world”.

“The Covid-19 vaccination policy must be underpinned by the principle that we are as strong as our weakest link,” the petition argues. “A single person deprived of vaccination would be to the collective detriment of a large section of society.”