Corona: Tripua govt embarrased in HC over false claim of ‘maximum vaccinated’

Agartala: Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb government had earlier earned a huge round of applause across the country for its claim of vaccinating 80 per cent population of all eligible age groups with the first dose and in case of above 45 yrs it was 98 per cent.
The division bench of Chief Justice Akil Kureshi and Justice Arindam Lodh during a hearing of a PIL regarding the COVID situation in Tripura nullified the claim that Tripura became top in the country in terms of vaccination, and observed neither of these two claims was accurate while directing Mission Director of National Health Mission Tripura to disseminate correct information without any further delay.
Referring to the affidavit of the state government, the bench found Tripura has approximately 26.86 lakh people belonging to 18 years above age group and 12.36 lakhs are above 45 yrs age who are eligible for getting the vaccine. When Dr Siddharth Shib Jaiswal, Mission Director of the National Health Mission, Tripura made the claims of highest vaccination, the total vaccines administered were 24,26,803 of which 5,66,458 were the second dose out of the total eligible population.
“Perhaps, he has taken the total doses of vaccines administered to arrive at this 80 per cent coverage, forgetting that a substantial part of it was administered to the same person as a second dose. Total vaccine doses administered to people over 45 years as of that date was 14,36,595. The second dose was by then given to 5,66,458 people. Thus around nine lakh were given vaccines, which certainly does not come to 98 per cent,” the court observed.
Criticising the government, the high court stated, “From the beginning, we have been putting great stress on reliability of public information distribution because we believe that it is only when there is total transparency and accuracy in data provided by the State machinery that the people will understand the correct picture and will have faith in data distribution system. When a responsible officer provided information which was inaccurate, we expect him to issue a correction statement to the press,” the court added.