New Delhi: The Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday made it clear that only healthcare and frontline workers will be vaccinated in the first phase of the vaccination drive in India and said that the ministers and politicians will have to wait their turn.
The Prime Minister’s instruction came following the announcement made by the Telangana Health Minister Atala Rajender. The Minister had announced that he would take the first dose of the vacci8ne in the state to instill confidence in the people. Soon after the announcement, the PMO issued a stern instruction that the healthcare workers should get vaccinated first. With this, the Minister immediately withdrew from the announcement.
Earlier, the governments of Haryana, Bihar and Odisha had asked the Centre to admit MLAs and ministers in the first phase of the vaccination drive. Following this, the PMO issued a directive to the ministers and political leaders to wait for their turn.
Labelled as the largest vaccination drive in the world, India is planning to get three crore healthcare and frontline workers vaccinated in the first phase. People over the age of 50 and people below 50 with other illnesses will get vaccinated in the second phase. The vaccination drive across the country was launched by the Prime Minster on 16 January via video conferencing.
