Act against vaccine hoarders, not political opponents: Maharashtra Minister Ashok Chavan

Maharashtra Minister Ashok Chavan has said the government should use the central agencies against hoarders of Covid vaccines and injections, instead of using them against the political opponents.

"Black marketers, hoarders of these vaccines and injections, particularly, Remdesivir... a few cases have been of hoarding have been detected in Maharashtra. The Government should bring in the CBI, the NIA and the ED... when you can use them to target your political opponents, why not utilise them against hoarders and black marketers, who are creating problems in the country," he said on Monday.

He said Remdesivir is not the ultimate or the only solution for handling Covid-19 cases. A number of vaccines have been certified world over by other developed countries also and "the doors for these types of vaccines should be opened up to be available in our country".

The Government had slowed down the production of vaccines also and exports were allowed even of the Remdesivir and injections were exported, he said.

He alleged that the Government reacted late to the situation.

"I think, the export should have been stopped earlier and the people of the country would have got the Remdesivir and other medicines in time. I think, this also needs to be addressed so that the production was ramped up and the states were given the respective requirement as per their cases in the respective states." he added