Bhubaneswar, Jul 5 (IANS): Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday urged the Central PSUs operating out of Odisha to take the responsibility of administering 10 lakh Covid vaccine doses in the month of July.

Pradhan said this while virtually reviewing the vaccination drive in Odisha by the corporates. Officials from the Central ministries, PSUs, corporate houses, private hospitals and other organisations attended the meeting.

The Government of India has allocated over 30.5 lakh free vaccine doses and more than 10 lakh doses through the private corporate route in July to Odisha, Pradhan said.

"The stakeholders must leverage the #Co-WIN technology and create a holistic strategy to carry out workplace vaccination, near-to-home vaccination and vaccination at private hospitals. Asked to achieve the target of 10 lakh vaccine doses through the corporate route in this month," the Union minister said in a tweet.

Pradhan advised the PSUs to vaccinate their staff and also the poor people residing in the nearby areas. He also called for setting up a task force to monitor vaccination by corporates in Odisha.

All stakeholders must come together to vaccinate people rapidly to ensure that Odisha emerges out of the pandemic, he said.

He also listened to the experiences of corporates and private hospitals in vaccinating people and urged them to expand the pace of vaccination and address any vaccine hesitancy to combat a possible third wave of the pandemic.

Pradhan said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has led from the front and committed free vaccines for every eligible citizen, adding that the country recently created a single-day vaccination record.

Notably, the Centre has been supplying vaccine doses to the states free of cost for vaccinating all the eligible people above 18 years of age since June 21. The allocation is made at a ratio of 75:25 for government and private sectors.

However, due to poor procurement by private hospitals, the Odisha government has apprehended that it will lose its proportionate share of 25 per cent allocation of vaccine doses to the private sectors.