Union Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday claimed that the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government was mismanaging the Covid-19 vaccination drive.
He claimed that the Shiv Sena MPs were asking the Centre for more vaccines while the state has only utilised 44 per cent of what has already been delivered.
“Maharashtra Government had only used 23 lakh vaccines out of the total 54 lakh vaccines sent to the state, till 12th March. 56 per cent vaccines remained unused. Now, Shiv Sena MP asks for more vaccines for the state. First mismanagement of pandemic now poor administration of vaccines,” the Union minister said in a tweet.
As per the Union health ministry data, Maharashtra is India’s worst-affected state from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The state alone is responsible for over 60 per cent of new coronavirus cases in India. In the last 24 hours ending on Wednesday morning, the state reported 17,864 cases 61.8 per cent of the total 28,903 new infections reported across the country.
Apart from Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have also been reporting high daily Covid cases.
A central team on Tuesday warned that Maharashtra is at the "beginning" of a second Covid-19 wave. Several cities in Maharashtra have been put under lockdown to curb the surge in cases.
As of Wednesday, India's total active caseload has reached 2.34 lakh (2,34,406) comprising 2.05 per cent of the total infections.