JSW To Procure Vaccines For Its Employees & Families
JSW Group, a few Tata Group companies and the India unit of a major multinational are among scores of firms that have either initiated or plan to begin talks with vaccine manufacturers in a first step to inoculate employees against COVID-19. The plan is to first vaccinate employees at manufacturing units, as they are more vulnerable than those working from home. The initiative coincides with the national roll-out of the vaccines, which have been flown to two dozen destinations over the last two days. From January 12, Serum Institute of India began delivering its Covishield vaccines, with Bharat Biotech following suit a day later, with the Covaxin doses. While the flagship steel business- JSW Steel – has about 13,160 employees, the Group - which also includes energy, cement, paints and infrastructure verticals – overall has a staff strength of 25,000. The industry executive quoted above added that negotiations on the price of the vaccine are also on. The Indian government will start administering the vaccines from January 16. While the initial focus is to vaccinate healthcare and frontline professionals – 30 crore by July – the market is expected to open up for retail and institutional sale even before that. The government is vaccinating the three crore healthcare and frontline professionals for free. Later on, the doses will be priced. Serum Institute had previously said it is supplying vaccines to the government at Rs 200 per dose. The retail price could be about Rs 1,000 a dose.