The finance ministry has given in-principle nod for advance payment of Rs 4,567.50 crore to Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India (SII) to boost the production of the vaccines in India. This constitutes 100 per cent advance to two of India's Covid vaccine manufacturers till July.
While Rs 3,000 crore has been approved for Pune-based SII—the manufacturer of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine Covishield, Rs 1567.50 crore has been granted to Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech to boost the production of Covaxin.
The finance ministry has reportedly relaxed the general financial rules to allow the advance payment against future supplies of Covid-19 vaccines without any bank guarantees.
The credit will be sanctioned to the nodal ministers in-charge for Covid-19 who will then pass it on to the two companies to ramp up vaccine production, reports said. Reports also said that the payment will be released at the earliest.
The decision comes days after SII CEO Adar Poonawalla requested the government for Rs 3,000 crore grant for ramping up capacity of the Covid-19 vaccine beyond 100 million doses a month. The SII is the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world. The company will also manufacture the Novavax vaccine in India.
India is facing acute vaccine shortage even as the country is grappling with a more severe second wave of COVID infection. India's total tally of COVID-19 cases climbed to 1,53,21,089 with 2,59,170 new coronavirus infections being reported in a day, while active cases surpassed the 20-lakh mark on Tuesday.
The death toll increased to 1,80,530 with a record 1,761 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.
