India vaccine administration - Manufacturing capacity mismatch

Since last few weeks Govt has been saying that their first priority is to fully vaccinate adult population before starting new booster program as Omicron wave has arrived. I misunderstood this as a constraint due to shortage of vaccines (i was wrong), but its something else. 

India now has vaccine manufacturing capacity of 300-335 Million vaccine doses per month. That is 250-275 Million doses of Covishield/Astrazeneca and 50-60 Million of Covaxin. The reports say that capacity is 90% utilizable (on SII). Roughly speaking, it means that India has manufacturing capacity of 10-11 Million production per day (read 1 & 2). India is also importing some Sputnik V but this is a very small number in overall equation.

 

 

Overall Vaccination chart - Doses per day administered (7 day average). Source

 

Vaccine doses per day administered in December. Source

 

 

But the vaccine administration is lagging to vaccine production (or vaccine manufacturing capacity). In fact SII, has planned to massively cut production because its sitting on stockpile of 500 Million surplus doses and Govt is not placing new orders for Covishield. The reasons for production-administration mismatch are not clear. Have we reached the maximum limits of our dispensation and administration? I mean the limiting capacity of physical infrastructure - the storage, transportation, health workers, meaning the supply chains of vaccine dispensation etc. I don't think so. Or are we encountering vaccine hesitancy in remaining unvaccinated population? On this part, look at United states which is flooded with vaccines but 39 Million eligible Americans who refuse to take vaccines. How much vaccine hesitancy is there in India? 

The bottom line is, India has vaccines but people are not getting it or are not taking it. Govt needs to figure out this problem. And this will be necessary for booster shots policy. An example. Delhi and most urban cities right now has significant vaccine administration/dispensation capacity and also low vaccine hesitancy compared to rural India. And as we have surplus vaccine production (and stockpile sitting in storage facilities), why don't we utilize it and start booster shots program more broadly in Delhi and other urban cities?  I think what we are missing is localized policy for vaccine dispensation and states should be given more freedom on this. 

The central Govt right now is looking at spreadsheet data on total vaccination numbers and making policy based on that. But there are a whole lot of complexities involved in terms of supply chains, vaccine hesitancy and production-dispensation mismatch. While centralized procurement of vaccines is right, we need to give more leeway to states in localized administration. In America, many states are making their own rules for booster shots according to their requirements. Why can't India try such a thing? 

PS - If India has unused manufacturing capacity. We should not cut down production. Apart from utilizing our capacity to best of our needs, we should increase our exports to Covax and to foreign countries which are significantly under-vaccinated like in African continent. Problem also exists with Covax & WHO in slow vaccine procurement & their dispensation and failure to establish better coordination with Indian Govt.