Awaiting Centre’s instructions: AAP on ‘free vaccine’ promise

By Ashish Srivastava New Delhi, Jan 25 : The Delhi government is awaiting instructions from the central government for the promise of providing free Covid-19 vaccines to all the residents of Delhi made by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Raghav Chaddha, national spokesperson of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Rajinder Nagar constituency told IANS that the demand to provide free vaccine has been conveyed to the Centre and now the government of Delhi is waiting for its instructions.
“The Arvind Kejriwal government is in a firm view that the vaccines should be provided to every citizen free of cost. It is the bounden duty of every government to ensure that it is given. One should not be deprived of the vaccine if it does not have wealth. Our demands and ideas have been forwarded to the Centre and we wait for their instructions,” he added.
Days before the country embarked on Covid immunisation drive, Kejriwal had publicly announced that his government will ensure free Covid-19 vaccines to the residents of the national capital. He had guaranteed that the AAP government would provide free Covid-19 vaccination even if the Centre fails to do so.
“The vaccine will start getting administered on January 16. It will first be given to corona warriors such as healthcare workers, front-line workers. I had appealed to the Central government that ours is a poor nation, and a pandemic like this has hit the nation after 100 years, since 1918 when the Spanish flu hit humankind,” he had said on January 14.
“There are a lot of people who would not be able to afford the vaccine. I had appealed to the Centre to provide free vaccines to all the people of the country. If required and if the Centre doesn’t do it, the Delhi government will provide free vaccine to all residents,” Kejriwal had stated.