Chennai: With fresh doses of Covid-19 vaccines reaching the State, the vaccination drive which had to be temporarily paused in Tamilnadu for two days due to shortage of jabs resumed today.

The State government received 2.5 lakh doses late last evening. Following this, vaccine shots were immediately despatched to all districts.

In June, the State was allocated 42 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines and the Union government allocated an additional 5 lakh doses.

The 2.5 lakh doses which were sanctioned add up to this taking the total allocation for Tamilnadu to 49.5 lakh doses.

A couple of days ago, Chief Minister M K Stalin urged Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan to increase the allocation of vaccines to the State and also increase the sub-allocation of vaccines for Government Institutions to 90 per cent.

Reiteraring his earlier request, he said under the new liberalised vaccination policy, the Union government is buying 75 per cent of the vaccines and the rest are being provided to private hospitals, to allow them to vaccinate better-off individuals on payment basis.

“While I agree that a part of the available vaccines has to be shared with the private institutions, I wish to bring to your notice the fact that this 25 per cent allocation to private hospitals is grossly higher when compared to the actual vaccinations done by them,” he noted.