Mumbai Apr 22 PTI The Serum Institute of India has stopped producing the COVID-19 vaccine since the last day of December 2021 as it has been sitting on millions of unsold vaccines after the vaccination momentum has ebbed its chief executive officer Adar Poonawalla said on Friday Poonawalla also warned against the return to the business as usual approach of the administration in the national capital saying we cant afford to put a price tag on the life of a citizen as the pandemic is not behind us yet nor we know by when it will be He also called for speeding up the decision to vaccinate young kids and said if they can be given other immunisation vaccines why not for the COVID-19 the end of which nobody knows as of now Since the vaccine intake has been coming down there has been a lot of unsold inventories with us We stopped production on December 31 2021 Currently we are sitting on over 200 million doses I have offered this to anyone willing to pick them up for free But there hasnt been a good response to that also Seems there is vaccine fatigue among the people now as even after the price was slashed to Rs 225 there has been no major uptake Poonawalla said at the Times Network India Economic Conclave Defending his call for lowering the gap between second and third doses to six months from nine months at present he said its needed for one we cant put a price tag on the life of a person be it an adult or a child Another important reason is that after six months the antibodies come down so it is better to go for the third dose within six months This is something many studies have verified and therefore many foreign governments have made the booster dose mandatory Already many counties have made booster doses mandatory for travel This means those who were vaccinated by August or September last will not be able to travel outside the country Therefore my suggestion to the government for six months gap for the third dose he said On the need for vaccinating kids in the 5-11 age bracket he said My point is we cant put a price tag on the life of a person Also if an additional dose of vaccine can prevent a 1000 hospitalisation so lets do that as was evident from the third wave On the delays in decision making Poonawalla rued that it seems the urgency is no longer there Unfortunately for the key people who are supposed to be taking decisions on time the committees supposed to be meeting on time it seems there is no urgency any longer The momentum of the past that brought us so far here is lost As you said it seems for them its business as usual Thats why there is no decision on the emergency use of Covovax is coming in What is more surprising is that the same vaccine has been approved by the regulator long ago and have also been in use in many European nations and in Australia However Poonawalla quickly added that the government at the highest level is fully seized of the matter but yes at the ground level there seems the urgency is lost PTI BEN MR MR

Mumbai Dec 27 PTI The Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority has awarded the metro line 3 contract to a joint venture of a Tata Group company and a consortium of the Siemens Group The 233-km elevated metro line connects the Hinjewadi Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park with Shivajinagar via Balewadi in the second largest city in Maharashtra The corridor with 23 stations is the first metro project in the country under the new metro rail policy and will be built under the public private partnership route a statement from Siemens said on Monday The joint venture is between Tata Group firm TRIL Urban Transport and Siemens Project Ventures GmbH a subsidiary of Siemens Financial Services Siemens is part of the consortium along with Siemens AG Siemens Mobility GmbH and Alstom Transport India and the JV is called Pune IT City Metro Rail which is a special purpose company Siemens scope of work includes project management turnkey electrification signalling communications and depot works or equipment it added The contract is the electrical and mechanical system works of the project to be completed in 39 months Siemens said The order size of Siemens is around Rs 900 crore Sunil Mathur managing director and chief executive of Siemens said Siemens is glad to be partnering with the Tatas to jointly develop the Pune metro We are confident that the new metro line will play a key role in positively impacting the quality of life of citizens to transform their everyday he said Siemens Financial Services invests in infrastructure projects around the world Through PPPs it is able to help cities meet their goals of obtaining intelligent infrastructure solutions and enable smarter more sustainable transportation networks The Tatas set up TRIL Urban Transport for developing and implementing PPP urban transport projects The company will focus on roads urban transport electric vehicles and smart cities PTI BEN MR MR