Pune: The Serum Institute of India (SII) will pay Rs 25 lakh compensation to family of each deceased person in connection with the massive fire incident reported at the company premise on Thursday afternoon.

In a statement issued by the SII, Chairman and Managing Director Cyrus S Poonawalla has said, "Today is an extremely sorrowful day for all of us at Serum Institute of India. Regrettably, there were losses of lives in the fire that broke out in our under installation facility situated at the Special Economic Zone at Manjari."

"We are deeply saddened and offer our condolences to the families of the departed. In this regard, we will be offering a compensation of INR 25 lakhs to each of the families, in addition to the mandated amount as per the norms. We would like to extend our gratitude to everyone for their concerns and prayers in these distressing times."

The deceased have been identified as Rama Shankar Harijan, Bipin Saroj, both residents of Uttar Pradesh; Sushil Kumar Pandey, resident of Bihar, Mahendra Ingle, Pratik Pashte, both residents of Pune. All are contractual labourers and were doing electrical works at the site.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will visit the Serum Institute of India (SII) on Friday noon. The emergency visit has been scheduled in the backdrop of the fire mishap that took place at the Serum on Thursday (January 21) afternoon. CM Thackeray will take stock of the situation and inspect the site tomorrow at noon.

Serum Institute of India is producing the COVISHIELD vaccine for COVID19 disease. The company is producing around 10 million doses of COVISHIELD per month for India as well as other countries in the world. Serum Institute is the largest vaccine producer company in the world with production of as many as 70 per cent of total vaccines produced in the world.