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The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the Centre on a plea seeking to revive the vaccine public sector units (PSUs) and utilize their full production capabilities by the placement of purchase orders.
A Bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna asked the Centre to file its response within four weeks saying it wanted to know what is the policy of the government in this regard. The apex court was hearing a plea filed by former IAS Amulya Ratna Nanda, All India Drug Action Network, low-cost Standard Therapeutics and Medico Friend Circle to grant functional autonomy to vaccine PSUs. The plea asked to put these PSUs to use especially after public funds were spent to make them Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) compliant. No PSUs should be excluded from producing any vaccine or from government vaccine procurement, as long as quality and affordability are ensured, the petition stated. The plea filed in May 2021 said steps should be immediately taken "to revive vaccine PSUs by ensuring the issuance of production licences to the remaining GMP compliant vaccine PSUs to utilize them for manufacturing all mass vaccination programmes including Covid-19 vaccine to meet ongoing demand influx." (ANI)
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