Vaccine-maker Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Friday said SII has suffered a loss of over Rs 1000 crore in Thursday’s fire. Although the production or supply unit remains unaffected, the major fire claimed five lives in the incident.
"The fire has damaged machinery that was being installed for the RotaVirus and BCG Vaccine production here... No actual vaccines are being manufactured here. The extent of the damage is around Rs 1,000 crore," SII CEO Adar Poonawalla said at the press conference on Friday.
The SII has taken responsibility for the five contractual labours who were killed in the blaze by announcing Rs 25 lakh compensation to the families.
"We were hoping that there was no loss of life. When we got an initial report that there has been no loss of life, we were relieved. But later, after clearing of the smoke, we discovered the dead bodies, Once I got to know about the tragic death of the workers then I sent out another message to condole the death,” Poonawalla said.
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The SII also assured that there is no damage to any of the production facilities of the Covishield vaccine that is being manufactured at its plant.
CM Uddhav Thackeray visits SII, takes stock of the situation
Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray visited the Serum Institute of India campus on Friday to take stock of the situation. He also reviewed the damage caused by the fire at the SII facility and met the company Chairman Cyrus Poonawalla and his son Adar Poonawalla.
"We have ordered a thorough probe... There cannot be any conclusions till the full investigations are complete and the report is available. Then we will know whether it was an accident or sabotage," the Chief Minister said.
He was accompanied by Tourism Minister Aditya Thackeray, Legislative Council's Deputy Chairperson Neelam Gorhe, Pune MP Girish Bapat, and other top government and police officials.
