5 Chandigarh, 2 Mohali private hospitals slash jab cost

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 11

Days after charging exorbitant rates from Covid vaccine beneficiaries, the private hospitals of the city and Mohali slashed the jab cost to the maximum price authorised by the Government of India.

While Covishield is being bought from the Serum Institute of India (SII) at Rs600, it was being sold from Rs850-Rs900 at private hospitals here. Also, Covaxin was being sold at Rs1,250 in the private hospitals here.

According to the CoWIN portal, as many as five private hospitals of the UT and two private health facilities of Mohali have cut down the Covishield price to Rs780, which was previously charged at Rs900, including over Rs200 as service charge.

Global Healthcare in Sector 21, Bedi Hospital in Sector 33, Cloudnine Hospital in the Industrial Area, Apollo Clinic in Sector 8 and Chaitanya Hospital in Sector 44, along with Max Hospital and Fortis Hospital in Mohali, have revised the vaccine rates.

The Centre had decided to buy 75 per cent of jabs from the vaccine makers for free supply to states, while private sector hospitals will continue to procure the remaining 25 per cent but cannot charge more than Rs150 per dose over the pre-fixed price.

How much a beneficiary has to pay

Covishield, manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, costs Rs600 per dose as declared by the company. The GST on the jab is Rs30 and with a service charge of Rs150, a beneficiary will not pay more than Rs 780 for a shot of the Oxford-AstraZeneca-developed vaccine.

Covaxin, manufactured by Bharat Biotech, costs Rs1,200 per dose as declared by the Hyderabad-based pharma giant. The GST on Covaxin is Rs70 and with Rs150 service charge levied by private centres, it will cost the beneficiary Rs 1,410.