Cost of stalled Parliament: More than 88.6 lakh Covid-19 vaccines
Reports indicate that Rs 133 crore has been wasted so far due to lost business hours
What can Rs 133 crore buy? This apparently-rhetorical question is significant because this is the loss that has been quantified on account of stalled proceedings in the Parliament in the ongoing monsoon session.
Over 88.6 lakh Covid-19 jabs
It can buy Sputnik vaccines for 13,36,146 persons or Covishield jabs for 17,05,128 individuals. But this calculation is going by the price charged by the private sector hospitals.
A more accurate figures can be arrived at by considering the price of a single jab at Rs 150, the cost at which the government procured both Covaxin and Covishield in the first and second phase. At this rate 88,66,666 jabs can be purchased for Rs 133 crore.
Midday meals for crores
If one turns to the midday meals, the cost of cooking a meal for a primary school student is Rs 4.97 according to the notification issued in April. At this rate midday meals for 26.76 core children can be cooked with the amount. If one targets upper primary students for whom the cost is Rs 7.45 per head, 17.85 crore children can be covered.
The cost of refilling a 46.7 litre jumbo oxygen cylinder is Rs 500. At this rate as many as 26.60 lakh such cylinders can be refilled with oxygen.
1.33 lakh wheelchairs
A good manual wheelchair costs Rs 10,000, which means Rs 133 crore can foot the bill of buying 1.33 lakh wheelchairs of the country’s hospitals.
The best of branded hand sanitiser costs Rs about 1,250 for a pack of 5 litres. Even without discounts on bulk purchases, as much as 53.20 lakh litres of branded hand sanitisers can be purchased with this amount.
53 schools
According to reports about Rs 2.5 crore is sufficient to set up a 10 + 2 school. At this rate 53 schools can be set up with Rs 133 crore.
According to the Reserve Bank of India database, the per capita GDP in 2019-20 was Rs 108,620. It means Rs 133 crore is more than 12,244 times that figure.
Stalling proceedings in Parliament has been a much-preferred ploy of protest by all opposition parties in the country.