Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday appealed to the Centre to provide it 2.6 crore more vaccine doses to inoculate the city’s entire population over the next three months.

There is a huge shortage of vaccines at the moment, Kejriwal said. The chief minister said that Delhi currently had doses enough to vaccinate people only for the next five to six days.

Kejriwal said that the Capital has received about 40 lakh doses from the Centre so far as against its requirement of roughly three crore doses.

“We need 80 to 85 lakh vaccine doses every month for three months to inoculate all in Delhi,” he said. “Our plan is to vaccinate everyone in three months, and for that, we need these many doses.”

He said that because of good arrangements made in Delhi, people from surrounding towns too wanted to get themselves vaccinated in the Capital. Residents of neighbouring districts such as Noida and Ghaziabad, in Uttar Pradesh, were going to the Capital to get inoculated, he said. “So, Delhi will require about 80 to 85 lakh vaccines every month, probably even a little more than that to meet the target [of vaccinating everyone in three months],” the chief minister explained.

The chief minister said that currently, roughly one lakh people are vaccinated in the city daily at 100 centres in Delhi. “And the number of centres will be increased to 300,” he added. “We can do this easily.”

Kejriwal added that vaccination is vital to ward off a third wave of the virus, and that “people are worried about a third wave”. He also urged the Centre to make vaccines for children as the state is “worried about their well-being”.

The Narendra Modi-led administration at the Centre has been widely criticised for opening up vaccination for all adults, without a proper supply schedule from manufacturers. Several states have had to delay the third phase of vaccination as enough supplies are not available to handle the burden of inoculating nearly 60 crore citizens in the 18-44 age group who became eligible to receive the jab from May 1.

States have flagged problems with the new vaccine procurement strategy. The government has allowed state governments and private hospitals to purchase up to half of the vaccines stocks, although under the new plan they could end up paying double or more what government has paid.

Moreover, several state governments, say the vaccine manufacturers are refusing to sell them vaccines as most of the stocks have been booked by the central government, leaving very little for them.