TN government to float fresh tenders for vaccine procurement

Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma Subramanian on Sunday said the State government will take efforts to float fresh global tenders for vaccine procurement.

The decision to float the tender has been taken after the previous global tender by the government for vaccine procurement, which closed on Saturday, failed to attract any bidders.

“It is unfortunate that no bidders participated in the tenders. The global tenders floated by states like Kerala, Karnataka, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, too, did not get bidders. The Chief Minister will discuss with officials as to why none participated in the tenders before floating fresh tenders,” he said to media in the Nilgiris.

The State government had on May 15 floated a global tender to procure 3.5 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines to administer to those in the age group of 18 to 44 years.

On the issue of vaccine shortage, the Minister said Tamil Nadu has a stock of 81,000 vaccine doses till Sunday morning.

“The target for June is 42 lakh, while 5.5 lakh doses have been received so far from the Centre and the remaining 36.5 lakh doses are expected to come by this month-end,” he said, adding that the government is in talks with the Centre to reopen its plant at Chengalpattu to manufacture vaccines.