Central govt provides aid of Rs 4,500 cr to vaccine manufacturers to scale up production

The Central government in order to speed up supplies of covid vaccines it has approved a payment of about Rs 4,500 crore as advance to vaccine makers like Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech against future supplies, sources said.

SII will supply 200 million doses and Bharat Biotech is to supply another 90 million doses to the government by July at a pre-agreed rate of Rs 150 per dose. Sources said the finance ministry has relaxed rules to allow advance payment without bank guarantee to help the vaccine makers ramp up production.

The centre wiull provide SII with Rs 3,000 crore while Bharat Biotech with Rs 1,500 crore in advance. Earlier this month, SII CEO Adar Poonawalla had said that the company would require around Rs 3,000 crore to ramp up production capacity for making vaccines for COVID-19.

In a significant decision to check the surge in COVID-19 cases in the country, the government on Monday announced that everyone above the age of 18 from will be eligible to take vaccine from May 1 and decided to make pricing, procurement, eligibility and administration of vaccines open and flexible. The decision was widely welcomed.

Vaccine manufacturers have been incentivized to further scale up their production, as well as attract new national and international players.

According to a Health Ministry release, the manufacturers would transparently make an advance declaration of the price for 50 per cent supply that would be available to state governments and in the open market before May 1.

"Based on this price, state governments, private hospitals, industrial establishments among other institutions would be able to procure vaccine doses from the manufacturers. Private hospitals would have to procure their supplies of COVID-19 vaccine exclusively from the 50 per cent supply earmarked for other than the government of India channel. Private Vaccination providers shall transparently declare their self-set vaccination price. The eligibility through this channel would be opened up to all adults, i.e. everyone above the age of 18," it said.