Prime minister Narendra Modi on monday announced that India would revert to a system of centralised procurement of vaccines against covid-19.
He also announced that free vaccines will be provided for the 18-44 age groups as well.
Private sector will be allowed to procure 25% of vaccines and service charges on vaccination by private hospitals is fixed at 150 per dose.
Prime minister Modi also announced the extension of the free ration distribution scheme for 80 crore beneficiaries under pradhan mantri garib kalyan yojna till Diwali.
# Covid cases
India recorded 83,887 new covid-19 cases and 2075 new deaths on monday.
Nearly 15.88 lakh samples were tested in the country and test positivity rate dipped to 4%.
Nearly 13.91 lakh vaccine doses were administered on monday.
Health ministry informed that India has repoprted 28,252 cases of mucormycosis.
# Domestic air travel
The civil aviation ministry is “examining” a proposal to dispense with the need for a negative RT-PCR test for fully vaccinated passengers for domestic air travel.
So far only 4.49 crore Indian citizens have received both doses of covid-19 vaccines and 18.55 crore have received a single dose.
# Maldives wins UNGA election
In a first for the maldives foreign minister Abdulla Shahid was elected the president of the UN general assembly for 2021-22.
Maldives got 143 votes or nearly three fourths of the 191 countries that voted in the annual election.
Abdulla Shahid’s rival former Afghanistan’s foreign minister Zalmai Rassoul, won 48 votes.