Union Minister of state, Pratap Sarangi said that all people of the country will be given free corona-virus vaccine, in response to demand by the opposition. The parties led by INC in the opposition wing had placed a demand for free vaccine for all the citizens of India, not only in the poll-bound Bihar as was proclaimed by the BJP in its election campaign.

The announcement of free vaccine in Bihar had raised a whirlpool of controversy-storm with the opposition parties blaming the NDA government that it was using the pandemic for political gain. A guessed estimate of Rs 500 will be spent on vaccine for each person as stated by Sarangi in a campaign for the assembly by-poll bound Balasore.

Bishnu Charan Sethi, BJP deputy leader in Odisha Assembly, in a bid to bring attention to the efforts of centre towards the state said that the Centre has been supporting Odisha during the pandemic and that the GOI has granted Rs 22,000 crore for the purpose.  Odisha Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister, R P Swain said that the state had signed an agreement with a vaccine manufacturer to extend the availability of Covid vaccine to all people of the state. But it was not clarified whether the state will provide the vaccine free of cost to the people.

It had been earlier declared that Indian scientists are in the process of developing several vaccines which are at different stages of clinical trials. The government of Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, and Puducherry had already announced free of cost COVID vaccine for the people of their respective states while Delhi CM-Arvind  Kejriwal had asserted that free vaccine be given to all citizens across the country.

The author is a student member of Amity Centre of Happiness.