Zoom News : Jun 24, 2021, 03:39 PM
New Delhi: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Thursday asked the party general secretaries to work towards addressing Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy and ensure its wastage is minimised."At the same time, we have to ensure that registration takes place, that vaccine hesitancy wherever evident is overcome and vaccine wastage is minimised," Gandhi said while addressing a meeting of party leaders virtually, according to news agency PTI.She said that daily vaccination rate has to treble so that 75% population gets fully vaccinated by year-end."No doubt, this is dependent entirely on the adequacy of vaccine supply. We must continue to put pressure on the Union government which has, at our party's insistence, finally taken on the responsibility for this," she added.This comes days after the Congress, in a white paper on the Covid-19 pandemic, has sought free, universal vaccination for all Indians in the shortest possible time frame and compensation for those who died after contracting the viral disease.The document, released by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday asked the government to invoke compulsory licensing provisions under the Patents Act 1970 to ramp up domestic vaccine production.Releasing the paper, Gandhi said 90% of Covid-19 deaths in the second wave were “needless” as they could have been saved if oxygen or drugs were available, and demanded a commission to look into “what went wrong” in the government’s strategy .Thursday's meeting comes ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament which is likely to start in July.The Congress has been also attacking the government on issues related to the farmers' agitation against three new agri laws and fuel price hike.India has administered over 300 million coronavirus vaccine doses by Wednesday.India on Thursday recorded 54,069 fresh Covid-19 cases and 1,321 deaths, taking the caseload and death toll to 30,082, 778 and 391,981 respectively, according to the Union health ministry’s update at 8am.