Why are Covid vaccination rates low in India and vary across states?

Inequitable distribution in terms of availability of vaccination sites leads to limited vaccine availability across the country; productivity varies widely across states

By July 18, India would have administered 400 million Covid-19 vaccine doses. The country has administered the first dose to 23 per cent of the population, and 5.5 per cent of it is fully vaccinated.

While some states have administered the first dose to nearly a third of their population, a Business Standard analysis reveals that wide variations in the vaccination strategy across states are keeping India from achieving a desirable vaccination rate.

Data reflects that the availability of vaccination sites is a significant hurdle for India to administer vaccines to most of its population.

Even though 2.6 vaccine sites per 100,000 people were available across the country as of July 12, in Bihar and Rajasthan, only 1.3 sites were available for 100,000 people. Jharkhand had 1.8, and West Bengal had 1.7 vaccination sites available, whereas Uttar Pradesh averaged two sites for 100,000 people.

Punjab, on the other hand, had four sites per 100,000. Gujarat and Haryana had 2.8 sites available. Delhi had 4.7 sites available for 100,000 people, whereas Chandigarh had six sites available. Jammu and Kashmir had 9.2 vaccination centres for every 100,000 people open daily for the last week. Even Chhattisgarh had 8.5 vaccination centres open daily.

Further analysis of data reveals that states with higher available vaccination sites per 100,000 people are also the ones that have administered the first dose to a larger proportion of their population.

Dadra and Nagar Haveli, which has 10.9 sites for 100,000 people, has administered the first dose to 77 per cent of its population. On the other hand, Bihar has only administered the first dose to 13 per cent.
 

Another significant difference between the states was vaccination per site. On average, India has been administering 107 doses per vaccination site. States with lower vaccination centres have higher productivity. Punjab administers only 60 doses per vaccination centre, whereas Bihar administers 125 and Odisha administers 195. There are wide variations, though, with Goa administering 200 doses per vaccination centre and Uttar Pradesh, which only has two vaccination centres per 100,000 people, administering 99 doses daily at each vaccination centre.
 

So, governments need to accelerate the number of doses given at each vaccination centre and expand vaccination sites.

For instance, in the case of Bihar, even though 125 doses are administered per vaccination centre, given that only 1.3 vaccination sites are available per 100,000 people, it means that vaccination is available in only a few districts and large areas remain unvaccinated.