PUNE: Prime Minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray on Friday he visited the Serum Institute of India (SII) where a fire at its semi-ready Manjari complex claimed five lives and inflicted an estimated loss of Rs 1,000 cr on the global vaccine giant.
Thackeray visited the SII facilities that were destroyed on Thursday and also met with the company’s president. Cyrus Poonawalla and his son Adar.
“We have ordered a full investigation … There can be no conclusions until full investigations are completed and the report is available. Then we will know if it was an accident or sabotage,” he said.
The prime minister said the Poonawalla have repeatedly assured that there will be no impact on the production and deployment of the Covishield vaccine, which will continue unimpeded.
Adar Poonawala said: “The fire has damaged the machinery that was being installed for the production of RotaVirus and BCG vaccines here … There are no actual vaccines being manufactured here. The extent of the damage is around 1 billion rupees.”
The massive fire devastated three to four floors of the next facility in Manjari that was scheduled to be operational in about a month.
The SII said there is no damage to any of the production facilities for the Covishield vaccine currently being manufactured at its other plant in Hinjewadi in the city.
The SII has already taken responsibility for five workers, including 3 migrants, who died in the fire by giving Rs 25 lakh, plus other benefits as per the rules, to each of their relatives and Thackeray said that if anything more needed to be done, the government would consider it.
He was accompanied by the minister of tourism Aditya thackeray, Legislative Council Vice President Neelam Gorhe, Pune MP Girish Bapat and other senior government and police officials.
The five victims included three migrants Ramashankar Harijan and Bipin Saroj from Uttar Pradesh, Sushilkumar Pandey from Bihar and two residents of Pune: Mahendra Ingle and Pratik Pashte.
Hadapsar Police have recorded an accidental death due to the burning case for the five victims and the Pune Municipal Corporation, Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation initiated simultaneous investigations into the fire.
On video: Serum Institute fire: Rs 1 billion worth of damage, but Covid vaccine supply will not be affected, says SII CEO Adar Poonawalla
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