Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren scoffs at PM's call to CMs: 'Didn't listen, only spoke his mind'

Taking a dig at PM Modi's call with him, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren on Thursday, commented that the 'PM should have listened to his work'. Claiming that the PM only 'spoke his mind', Soren said it would be better if had 'spoken about work'. Jharkhand has 59,532 active cases and 2,00,237 recovered cases with 3346 fatalities.

Hemant Soren takes a dig at Modi

PM Modi speaks to CMs

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Chief Ministers of 4 states, including Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Jharkhand to take stock of the situation pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Prime Minister also called up the Lieutenant Governors of Puducherry and Jammu & Kashmir to evaluate the coronavirus crisis in their Union territories. As per the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), PM Modi spoke to the CMS & LGs to review the progress of vaccination and the roadmap for scaling up the production of vaccines in the next few months.

India's oxygen & vaccine shortage

Currently, India is grappling with acute oxygen supply with Delhi being hit the worst - several hospitals have moved the High Court seeking oxygen supply. While the Centre and Delhi govt have blamed each other for the ongoing oxygen crisis in the national capital, Railways has started 'Oxygen Express'  to transport liquid oxygen to the states via green corridors. These trains have already begun to arrive at UP, Maharashtra, Andhra from Odisha, Jharkhand and others. Delhi, which has increased its demand to 900 MT oxygen per day has been allotted only 480 MT by Centre. Delhi has demanded the Centre's help in procuring more oxygen, accusing UP and Haryana of obstructing its supply and expressing the inability to procure tankers. The Delhi HC has warned the Centre with contempt proceedings if oxygen quota of Delhi (490 MT) is not met with, tasking  Centre wit arranging tankers for Delhi. Except for nine sectors, the supply of oxygen for industrial purposes by manufacturers and suppliers has been prohibited from April 22 as a temporary measure.

Meanwhile, India's vaccination drive has hit a roadblock due to shortage of supplies. On April 19, relaxed the age bar for vaccination from May 1 onwards allowing 18+ to be vaccinated, and states to procure doses from manufacturers directly and approved an advance payment of Rs 4,567.50 crores to Serum Institute of India (SII) & Bharat Biotech (BBL) to ramp up vaccine production. Soon enough, most state governments placed lakhs of orders with the two vaccine manufacturers, but are yet to receive their orders. States like Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Jammu-Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Delhi have postponed their vaccination drive by two weeks atleast due to a shortage of vaccine doses. Both Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India (SII) have offered vaccines at RS 150/dose to Centre, but at Rs 300 and Rs 400 respectively to state governments.