The Pune-headquartered Serum Institute of India (SII) has begun its collaboration with Oxford University to venture into mass production of a vaccine against the Covid-19 virus, as a result of which, the city has become a spotlight for vaccine distribution not just in the country, but also across the world.
It has been two days since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the country will have a vaccine in the coming weeks, after his visit to the institute.
Pune’s Lohegaon airport is unlikely to be able to handle such large scale distribution and storage.
The Pune airport’s only runway is currently undergoing repair and recarpeting by the Indian air force, which would continue for the next nine months as per the Air Force’s commitment to the Airport Authority of India.
This has restricted flight movements, all of which has been shifted to 12 hours, between 8 am and 8 pm.
During the last meeting held on October 6, 2020, the Airport Advisory Committee (AAC) raised the issue of handing over the BSO yard/CWE land specially, a total of for 8.5 acres and 2.5 acres, for cargo movement.
BJP MP Girish Bapat who is the chairman of the Airport Advisory Committee (AAC) said, “We have been constantly following up with the Air Force to hand over the land, however, there is no positive response. Without the land we would probably face a challenge in handling huge cargo. We have asked the Air Force to provide us the land at least on lease, on a temporary basis, and we will have a meeting on the same in the coming week.”
{{/usCountry}}BJP MP Girish Bapat who is the chairman of the Airport Advisory Committee (AAC) said, “We have been constantly following up with the Air Force to hand over the land, however, there is no positive response. Without the land we would probably face a challenge in handling huge cargo. We have asked the Air Force to provide us the land at least on lease, on a temporary basis, and we will have a meeting on the same in the coming week.”
{{/usCountry}}Airport Director Kuldeep Singh said, “We do not have a final vaccine as of yet and so this is a hypothetical question. You might have to ask Serum whether they want their product to be sent by road, by rail or by flights. We have not had any such a conversation at on that front as of yet.”
A total of 150 tonnes of domestic cargo is handled by the airport each day, Singh had said during an earlier meeting.
SII stated; “It’s early for us to talk about this. We are currently focusing on getting the emergency licensure.”
Although the institute has a dedicated airport office at Lohegaon airport to handle its cargo of other vaccines, distribution of Covid19 vaccine across the globe would be a mammoth task which would require a separate cold storage and distribution facility.
Aviation expert Dhairyasheel Vandekar said, “It should not be a problem if all the agencies coordinate. Give the pandemic this would be a top priority. If the other commercial flights are affected, the number of such flights has gone down during the pandemic and so I think the airport would be able to schedule chartered flights if need be. However, cold storage and cold chain management would be a challenge”