India's largest software exporter TCS said it is setting up 100 COVID-19 vaccination centres across India to inoculate its nearly 5 lakh employees and their dependents, with plans to step up the vaccination drive between the third and fourth week of May.
TCS' Bengaluru-based peers Infosys and Wipro have also unveiled plans this week to vaccinate staff. While Infosys has vaccinated 11,000 people and will order 1.6 million doses to cover all its staff and their kin, Wipro expects to have access to 1 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccine by early June.
In an earlier interaction, HCL Tech CHRO VV Apparao said that the firm has started vaccination of employees in its Delhi-NCR and Chennai, and has procured a few thousand doses. It is in talks with hospitals and vaccine manufacturers to step up the supply, he added.
TCS vaccination roadmap
“While we have started vaccination camps in a few cities, the drive will be done on a larger scale across the country between the third and fourth week of May. Registrations have already begun for this. TCS is setting up over 100 CVCs (COVID Vaccination Centres) across India. This includes CVCs across TCS offices in 21 cities and CVCs launched with our primary medical partner across 33 cities. For associates that do not have access to CVCs in these areas, we are also enabling access to vaccination centres via a national network of more than 650 hospitals,” TCS said in a statement to Moneycontrol.
The company said it has set up a complete framework for COVID care that takes care of all anticipated aspects. “The process for the vaccination drive will be digitally enabled and technology will be leveraged for end-to-end process management including registration and scheduling via our internal application. We have also launched an internal campaign to stress on the importance of getting vaccinated and ensure our associates have the necessary information and are assisted through the entire process,” the company stated.
It has also charted a multi-vendor and multi-location mechanism, in line with NEGVAC (National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19) guidelines.
TCS employs 4.88 lakh people and the top four IT firms together employ over 10 lakh people in India. The vaccines will be administered to employees free of charge.
In talks with US-based vaccine manufacturers
Some companies are also in talks with vaccine manufacturers in the US. "We have spoken to Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech—they want to deal with the government for now. We also spoke to senior officials of Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson—they want the government to sort out the indemnity clause," UB Pravin Rao, COO, Infosys, said in an interview with Moneycontrol.
Tech Mahindra said it is in talks with Pfizer, Moderna and J&J. TCS and Infosys are yet to respond to Moneycontrol's query on vaccination plans. Industry bodies like NASSCOM and Confederation of Indian Industry too are in talks with government to liberalise vaccine imports.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
