mumbai despite claims of a liberalised policy the centre is monitoring and allocating the number of covid19 jabs which states and private hospitals can procure directly from vaccine manufacturers the centre dictates the quantity as well as the priority to be given to the states before deliveries are initiated by the manufacturers sources told toi similarly in terms of orders from private hospitals vaccine manufacturers confirm specifics only after the central governments approval before opening up vaccination for everyone above 18 years the centre in april announced a decentralised plan under which manufacturers were directed to reserve 50 of their monthly output for central government procurement while the balance 50 split equally between states and private hospitals was to be procured by them directly from the vaccine companies a questionnaire sent to the union health ministry went unanswered for instance in may first month since the policy was liberalised the share of states and private hospitals totalling 15 crore doses each was supplied by serum institute alone starting midmay till now over 250odd hospitals have received the jabs from the quota reserved for the private sector the source added of this large private hospital chains cornered a lions share due to their financial muscle as the order involves advance payment the smaller ones were possibly left out due to initial confusion and miscalculation regarding vaccine prices and also because they could not cough up the huge amount in advance compared with around rs 150 per dose that sii and bharat biotech charge the centre private hospitals pay rs 600 per dose for covishield and rs 1200 per jab for covaxinfurther the state or private hospital which places the order is informed about the specific quantities they may receive frequency of the delivery or timeline if staggered over a period once its been approved by the centre this was confirmed by a private hospital which placed a substantial order of a few lakh doses last month we were conveyed that the quantity is subject to approval from the centre he told toisince may several states have been forced to shut down vaccination faced with a supply crunch with the pace dropping by around 35 in may over april alone at present a majority of the vaccination is being administered using serum institutes covishield with bharat biotechs covaxin being the second approved vaccine recently russias sputnik v has started being rolled out in few quantities vaccine deliveries overall are being monitored by the centre in the statereserved quota last month the central government gave equal weightage to the worstaffected states where the virus caseload was high and attempted a fairly equitable distribution between the four regions north south east and west sources added earlier delhi chief minister manish sisodia in may tweeted a letter by bharat biotech in response to his demand for additional vaccines where the company is quoted as saying that it was making dispatches as per the directions of the government officials concerned