Yes ... The Centre knew they weren't responsible but had to do it anyway. SC also knew they didn't have to obey, but ordered them anyway!Atithee wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 8:52 amLots of words to confuse me. Is the gist that there is no legal requirement but the center did it anyway? I don’t get why center is responsible for even transportation. This way, they will hardly ever be the good guy; they will almost always be the bad guy for poor planning in states’ part.
The only reason for their being responsible for transportation is that the fastest mode of tanker transportation is trains. But India does not have private goods train companies. The Centre runs the railways, so the states needed them to transport it. (If I am not mistaken the states paid for the transport, too. the railways didn't do it for free). if there was a private operator, they would be doing the routing and logistics for the fastest delivery within time windows as stipulated by the states. So, the centre, as the train operator, becomes the logistics planner too!
Centre has authority for standardization and quality control nation-wide on a variety of things (mentioned in the constitution, and it somewhat automatically applies to healthcare too). So they can have ICMR and DCGI determine which vaccines to be used/approved. Technically, I believe, the states can question and not accept national standards (for eg, Kerala tried it on National Highway standards, for narrower land acquisition). But on a health matter the states won't question it. But once the Centre is approving vaccines, they automatically assume responsibility for making its use possible. That would mean facilitating the acquisition. Nobody can stop a state from cutting a deal with SII though. They won't, because they know it will be a cheaper for the Centre to negotiate and purchase in bulk. The main reason for foreign companies to not deal with the states is because they have larger buyers out there. So, to not lose leverage on making Indian Government purchase at a larger volume, they resist dealing with the states. But if pfizer didn't have enough backed up orders, they will surely sell to Indian states, but right now it is a seller's market on vaccines. The foreign companies may also know that the states need import permission from the centre (and that is in the union list!), so they could worry about delays and problems if the Centre has not blessed it.What about supply of vaccines? Is that center’s responsibility? If not, why are foreign pharma refusing to deal directly with the state governments? And if yes, how can a state own Health care when the center controls pharma production and distribution?
I agree and that was my point too. Just policy-making and giving away money, or even policy-making and constructing facilities would not be enough. That will be pretty inefficient and a lot of money from the centre could end up getting wasted. Just look at Center buying ventilators and giving to states. A large number of them never got used!! You cannot spend an extra 3 percent of your GDP on that kind of boondoggles.If India’s healthcare has to be improved, I don’t see how this can remain a state’s responsibility? Just policy making and giving away funds to state for whatever they want to donor will create haves and have nots. And, how do you prevent people from one state going to others?