Flights leave Pune carrying lakhs of Covishield vaccine doses

A decisive phase in India's fightagainst coronavirus began on Tuesday as the first consignmentof Covishield vaccines left for Delhi, four days ahead of thenationwide inoculation drive launch.

Four airlines are operating nine flights to transport56.5 lakh doses of the vaccine from Pune to 13 cities acrossthe country on Tuesday, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep SinghPuri said.

The first two flights, operated by SpiceJet and GoAirto Delhi and Chennai, took off from Pune in the morning andthe other flights followed shortly.

''Today @airindiain @flyspicejet @goairlinesindia &@IndiGo6E will operate 9 flights from Pune with 56.5 lakhdoses to Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Shillong,Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Bhubaneswar, Patna,Bengaluru, Lucknow & Chandigarh,'' Puri said on Twitter.

A SpiceJet flight carrying the vaccines left Pune forDelhi around 8 am, three hours after three trucks with themaiden consignment of the vaccines rolled out of the SerumInstitute of India facility, 15 km from the airport.

The temperature-controlled trucks left the SerumInstitute gates shortly before 5 am, carrying 478 boxes of thevaccines, each box weighing 32 kg, a source involved in thevaccine transport arrangements told PTI.

A 'puja' was performed before the vehicles left thefacility.

The vaccine consignment for Mumbai will leave by road.

Trucks belonging to Kool-ex Cold Chain Ltd are being used toferry the vaccine stocks from Serum Institute.

The Central government on Monday placed firm orders inadvanced commitments for over six crore doses of vaccinesfrom Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech for inoculating threecrore healthcare and frontline workers in the first phase ofthe nationwide vaccination drive beginning January 16.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday underscored theenormity of the ''world's biggest vaccination exercise'', sayingover 30 crore Indians will get the jabs in the next few monthsagainst just 2.5 crore people vaccinated in over 50 countriesso far in around a month.