Jaipur, Jun 20 (PTI) Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday said every citizen of the state should play their role in helping combat the coronavirus pandemic and make the vaccination campaign successful.

He said this is the time to rise above all other commitments, including political thinking and party ideologies, to unite and save lives.

"We have to fulfil the duty of humanity by sidelining narrow-mindedness and discrimination. It should be our endeavour that no person is left out from vaccination," Gehlot said in a statement.

The CM was addressing a video conference organised on Sunday to increase vaccine participation.

He said the state government is conducting the vaccination drive across cities and villages in a planned manner. Every person should get the protective shield of the vaccine to prevent the spread of the pandemic.

Gehlot said the government has been successful in keeping vaccine wastage much less than the prescribed standards.

The Chief Minister said free vaccines have been announced by the Centre from June 21 for the age group of 18 to 44 years.

After the change in the Centre's vaccine procurement policy, Rs 600 crore taken from the MLAs fund and deposited in the Chief Minister's COVID-19 Mitigation Fund would be returned. But in view of the effect of the pandemic, it will be appropriate to spend this amount this year itself for strengthening the medical services in the state.

Rajasthan Assembly Speaker C P Joshi said public representatives and political workers have access to the booth level in villages and hamlets.

In such a situation, they can play a more active role in raising awareness about vaccination at the grassroots level and removing the misconceptions related to vaccines among the backward and uneducated people, he said.

Health Minister Raghu Sharma said 2,444 cold-chain points have been made across the state while capacity has been developed to administer doses to 12 to 15 lakh people per day.

Minister of State for Education Govind Singh Dotasra said all public representatives should rise above political ideologies and make the vaccination campaign successful to save the people of the state from the pandemic.

Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Rajasthan Assembly Rajendra Rathore said the Opposition will fully cooperate with the state government in the vaccination campaign as it did in preventing the spread of COVID-19 cases last year.

Health Secretary Siddharth Mahajan said so far about 2.08 crore people of the state have been given vaccine doses. Of these, 1.74 crore people have received the first dose and more than 34 lakh people have received both the doses.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)