During the COVID-19 pandemic, Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India, who launched the Covishield vaccine, earned a significant sum. According to a Reuters report, a substantial portion of this amount was donated to the BJP. In 2022, SII reportedly made a notable donation in a single day. Within 48 hours, they contributed another 50 crore. Over the next 15 days, they donated 52 crore to the BJP. This information was disclosed by Reuters after reviewing submissions to the ECI by the Prudent Electoral Trust Commission.
In August 2022, Serum, a pharmaceutical company, transferred a total of 52.5 crore to Prudent Trust in three installments: 40 crore on August 1, 10 crore on August 2, and 2.5 crore on August 17. Prudent Trust then transferred the entire sum to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on August 18. The Serum Institute of India experienced a remarkable 80% increase in revenue from the Indian market in 2022, primarily due to the development and distribution of the Covishield vaccine, which was only at 17% in 2020 and 40% in 2021. Notably, around 79% of the government's COVID-19 vaccination campaign relied on Serum Institute's Covishield. The Government of India had placed significant orders for Covishield, including one crore ten lakh doses in January 2021 and an additional ten crore doses in March of the same year.
About the Serum Institute of India:
Founded in 1966 by Cyrus Poonawala, the Serum Institute of India has become the world's largest vaccine manufacturer. The company annually sells around one and a half billion doses of vaccines, with ambitions to increase production to four billion doses. As of 2014 the vaccines manufactured by the Serum Institute of India have been used in international vaccination programmes run by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Today the Serum Institute of India is run by the Poonawalla Group and engages in research, development, and manufacturing.
About Prudent Electoral Trust
Prudent Electoral Trust is the richest electoral trust in the country. About 90 percent of the donations received from the corporate world to political parties reside with it. It was earlier known as Satya Electoral Trust. BJP gets maximum funds- Prudent Electoral Trust has been one of the biggest fund givers of BJP since 2013-14. On the other hand, the share of Congress has declined. The difference between the donations received by both the parties is huge. In 2019-20, BJP got 216.75 crores and Congress got only 31 crores.