After Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra capital Mumbai, three more states floated global tenders on Saturday for procuring almost 91 million Covid-19 vaccine doses. As per documents reviewed by News18, the governments of Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Uttarakhand have called for global bids.
While Tamil Nadu’s tender has cited a requirement of 50 million doses within three months of placing an order, Odisha has sought 38 million vaccine doses within four months while Uttarakhand’s tender has sought vaccines for “3 million individuals”. Uttar Pradesh was the first to float a global tender last week for 40 million doses while the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai earlier this week floated a global tender for 10 million doses. At least a dozen states have said they will invite global tenders given the shortage of vaccine stocks with the two local manufacturers, The rest are also said to be in the process of preparing bids. The Centre had last month allowed states to directly import vaccines from abroad as it opened the drive to the 18-44 age group.
Tamil Nadu has invited bids by June 5 and asked for the supplies to be delivered to the State Vaccine Stores in Chennai and district vaccine stores at Cuddalore, Thanjavur, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Sivagangai, Tirunelveli, Vellore, Salem and Coimbatore. The vaccine storage temperature has been specified to be between 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. For a manufacturer bidder, the entity should have supplied at least 200 million doses, in the last two years, of which at least 50 million doses should have been supplied in the last one year, the tender stipulation says. The manufacturer should have a manufacturing capacity of at least 20 Million doses per annum, the Tamil Nadu bid document specifies.
The Odisha government’s global tender asks for bids to be submitted by May 28 and has ordered 38 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine which can be stored between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius. The Odisha government has specified that vaccines supplied must have a minimum of 80 per cent remaining shelf life for domestic manufacturers and a minimum of 60 per cent remaining shelf life for foreign manufacturers at the time of supply. The document says that from the date of signing of the agreement, 7.5 million doses must be supplied within 30 days, a total of 22.5 million doses within two months, a total of 37.5 million doses within three months and the full 38 million doses within four months. The Odisha government has said it will make full payment within two working days of receipt of each consignment and advance payment will be released to the tune of 30 per cent of the value of each purchase order.
The Uttarakhand government’s global tender has meanwhile stated that the global ‘Request for Proposal’ (RFP) has been floated ‘considering the short availability of Covid 19 Vaccine in India’ and mentioned that due to surge in COVID-19 cases, the health infrastructure of the state is stretched. “Vaccination of an individual can prevent a new case of Covid 19 infection. Covid -19 Vaccine has the potential to give relief to stretched healthcare infrastructure. It is proposed to procure Covid-19 Vaccine for vaccinating the population residing/working within the jurisdiction of the State,” the state government tender has said, asking for vaccines for 3 million individuals. “The applicant should not belong to countries sharing borders with India,” the tender mentions, hence ruling out vaccine supplies from China. “The applicant in their own name should have satisfactorily supplied covid vaccines to a public organization of Government of India Or any other Government in America/Europe/ Australia /Asia excluding countries sharing borders with India,” the tender mentions.
It has added that the applicant should have their own cold chain transporting system from their manufacturing unit or should have a valid contract with a transporting agent having facilities to transporting Covid Vaccines under cold chain norms to the storage facility. The tender document adds that the state government presently has cold storage facilities with a temperature of 2 to 8 degrees. “If the Covid Vaccine requires storage and temperature requirement other than that, the applicant will have to provide the required storage facility for the Covid Vaccine at Dehradun, Uttarakhand,” the tender adds.
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