India Celebrated PM’s Birthday by Record Two Crores Plus Inoculation in a Day
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 17: India celebrated the prime minister Narendra Modi’s 71st birthday on Friday by giving a major push to the inoculation drive creating a new record of administering over two crore COVID-19 vaccine doses in a single day.
The cumulative doses administered in the country reached 2,00,41,136 and the total number of doses administered in the country has crossed 78.68 crore, , according to data on the Co-WIN portal.
The daily vaccinations crossed the one-crore mark for the fourth time in less than a month. Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said this was the fastest pace at which one crore doses have been administered.
“On PM @Narendra Modi Ji’s birthday, till 1:30 pm, the country has crossed the mark of 1 crore vaccines, the fastest so far, and we are continuously moving forward. I believe that today we will all make a new record of vaccination and give it as a gift to the prime minister,” he said in a tweet in Hindi along with the hashtags “VaccineSeva” and “HappyBdayModiji”.
The daily COVID-19 vaccination in the country of over one crore a day were earlier achieved on August 27, August 31 and September 6.
Mandaviya on Thursday had called for a major push to the COVID-19 vaccination drive during Modi’s birthday. The BJP had asked its units across the country to help get a large number of people vaccinated on the occasion. A 20-day mega event — “Seva and Samarpan Abhiyan” — has also been planned by the BJP to mark his 20 years in public service. During the 20-day mega outreach programme that will continue till October 7 — the day Modi was sworn in as Gujarat Chief Minister in 2001 — the party will hold massive cleanliness and blood donation campaigns, and send five crore postcards to the Prime Minister to congratulate him for his efforts.
The break-up of the number of days taken in achieving batches of 10 crores vaccinations has been progressively decreasing in the country since the vaccination drive was initially launched in a slow pace on January 16. India took 85 days to touch the first 10-crore vaccination mark, 45 more days to cross the 20-crore mark and 29 more days to reach the 30-crore mark, according to the ministry. The country took 24 days to reach 40 crore, 20 more days to cross the 50-crore vaccination mark on August 6, it
took 19 more days to go past the 60-crore mark and only 13 days to reach 70 crore from 60 crore. The total number of doses administered crossed the 75-crore mark on September 13.
Sulabh International celebrated the Prime Minister’s birthday by organising cleanliness drives at 71 locations in Uttar Pradesh. The NGO which runs a toilet network across the country performed drives in Lucknow, Varanasi, Allahabad, Agra, Kanpur, and Jhansi, among other places in Uttar Pradesh to mark the day as “Swachhta Divas,” a press release issued by it said. “As an NGO working in areas of sanitation and water for more than 50 years, we worked with all partners – in line with prime minister’s vision – to take the ODF India to the next level for its sustainability,” Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh Sanitation and Social Reform, who formally launched the nationwide programme virtually, said. “We applaud Narendra Modi for providing leadership in tackling issues crucial for women and girls,” he added.
Union Minister Kapil Patil inaugurated 100 Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha offices to mark Modi’s birthday. At a function in Badlapur, Patil said 200 more offices would be opened in next two days. He also inaugurated 11 ‘Rupee One’ clinics in his Lok Sabha constituency Bhiwandi. The Thane unit of the BJP launched a ‘Seva Saptah’ (service week) to celebrate Modi’s birthday.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami planted a tree at his official residence to mark the Prime Minister’s birthday while Bhupendra Patel, the chief minister of his home state Gujarat joined the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s drive to plant 71,000 saplings. The tree plantation, based on Japanese techniques to ensure they grow close to each other so that the plot resembled a forest, was carried out near Lal Bahadur Shastri Lake, the AMC officials said.
The Congress on Friday wished Modi on his 71st birthday but said India was paying the price for his “failures” on several fronts and hence the day is being observed as “unemployment day”, “anti-farmer day” and “high prices day”. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi extended his wishes to the PM on Twitter. “Happy Birthday, Modi ji,” he said. The Indian Youth Congress and the NSUI observed the day as “national unemployment day.”
