Delhi's first drive-in vaccination centre brings down shutter. Here's why

Days after the Central government announced a price cap for the administration of COVID-19 vaccines in private hospitals, Delhi's first drive-through vaccination centre has decided to shut down its facility from today, stating that the operation has become financially "unviable". The centre at Vegas Mall, Sector 14, Dwarka, inaugurated on May 26, was established by the Delhi government in collaboration with Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital last month.

Around 10,000 people received the vaccine shot at the centre so far, said officials of Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital, which was given the responsibility to run the vaccination centre at Vegas Mall.

Dr Kousar A Shah, Chief Operations Officer (COO), Aakash Healthcare, Dwarka said that the capping of vaccine administration prices has made it "unviable" for the hospital to continue the vaccination program at the drive-through inoculation centre. "From today, we are stopping Delhi's first drive-through vaccination program which we ran successfully for the last 15 days and we actually wanted to run this for a longer time," Dr Shah told ANI.

"However, the cap on vaccination administration charges has made it unviable for us. So, we had to stop this facility," he added. The centre was only administering the Covisheild vaccine. The fee for getting vaccinated at the facility inside the Vegas Mall was ₹1,000 per dose of Covishield and ₹1,400 for vaccination sitting in your own vehicle.

In a letter to all states and union territories on Tuesday, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had capped the maximum service charge per dose levied by private hospitals at ₹150 per dose.