Arvind Kejriwal has these suggestions for PM Modi to ramp up vaccine production in India

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New Delhi: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a few suggestions on how the Centre could increase vaccine production.

In a video conference, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader gave these four suggestions to the Prime Minister, he said: "All vaccine makers in India should be ordered to manufacture Bharat Biotech's Covaxin to ramp up stocks within 24 hours."

He advised that foreign vaccine makers should be allowed to rollout their vaccines. "The Centre should speak to international vaccine manufacturers, buy from them and distribute to states," he said.

Another suggestion was to get the vaccine from other countries who "have stocked more vaccines than they need and that these nations could be requested to give the surplus ones to India.

The Chief Minister further added that international vaccine manufacturers should be allowed to produce in India.

Meanwhile, the national capital has "paused the rollout" of vaccines for the 18-44 age category due to a shortage of doses. "To protect the country from a third COVID-19 wave, it's important to speed up the vaccination drive," he said in an appeal to the Centre.

"All the doses that we received from the government (for 18-44 age group) have been used. A few doses were left, which will also be used by the evening. This is sad. We have written to the centre about this...as soon as we receive supply, we will reopen the centres," the Chief Minister said in his video address.

On Saturday, India recorded over 2.57 lakh new COVID-19 cases and 4,194 deaths in the last 24 hours, as per the Union Health Ministry's data. The country witnessed 2,57,299 fresh infections and now has 29,23,400 active cases. The total number of coronavirus cases in the country has now increased to 2,62,89,290, of which, 2,95,525 people have succumbed to the virus, while 2,30,70,365 have recovered.