Indian IT companies to start COVID-19 vaccination drive for employees

vaccination India
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India’s IT services companies have started organising vaccination camps for their employees and their family members against COVID-19 and said that they are covering the cost of vaccination.

India is currently reporting more than 250,000 new COVID-19 cases a day in its worst phase of the pandemic. Seeing the worsening situation, the Indian government opened up COVID vaccinations for all adults, effective May 1.

Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech are the only two companies locally producing their respective vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin. On Wednesday, the Serum Institute of India fixed its vaccine price at Rs 600 for private hospitals and Rs 400 for state-run hospitals.

Companies like Tech Mahindra, Infosys and Wipro have already made their plans public and have started partnering with hospital chains for the vaccination process.

“We will shortly organise COVID vaccination camps at our Electronics City campus for Bangalore-based employees and are making necessary efforts to roll out vaccination camps across other major offices in India,” Wipro said in a statement to Indian media. Wipro employs about 199,712 people.

A Wipro spokesperson said that the company is monitoring the situation and working with experts to ensure that its employees get the best support at every stage.

On the other hand, Tech Mahindra has also launched an exclusive COVID-19 vaccination drive for its associates and their dependent family members across India.

“We believe in ‘Wellness before Business’ which is why we have several initiatives in place to ensure the safety and health of our associates and their loved ones,” Harshvendra Soin, global chief people officer at Tech Mahindra, said in a statement,

Soin said that Tech Mahindra has partnered with Fortis Healthcare to kick off the first phase of the drive. “In addition to implementing all safety protocols, the vaccination drive in partnership with Fortis Healthcare will thereby enable us to keep our associates and their loved ones safe,” he said.

Infosys, too has partnered with over 130 hospitals to vaccinate its employees and their immediate families. It also organises camps on its main campus and is working on setting up similar camps in other locations.

Infosys employs 259,169 people in India.

As per media reports, Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) and HCL Technologies — the top-five IT services companies in India — employ around 1.2 million people. India’s total IT workforce stands at 4.6 million.

Indian IT firms are among the largest private employers in India. The top five companies – Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and HCL Technologies Ltd. – employ more than 1.2 million people or a quarter of India’s 4.6 million.

Reliance Industries Limited, which owns Reliance Jio, and Bharti Airtel recently said they would cover the COVID-19 vaccination cost for employees and their dependents.

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