Serum's Cyrus Poonawalla receives Lokmanya Tilak National Award 2021 for his work amid Covid-19

Cyrus S Poonawalla, who is the founder-chairperson of the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), was conferred the prestigious Lokmanya Tilak National Award 2021 on Friday. He received the award for his contribution to the health sector as well as the vaccine production in the country. Poonawalla was named as the recipient of the award earlier in July.

The award ceremony was held in the presence of former Maharashtra home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, President of Tilak Smarak Mandir, Deepak Tilak and Trustee of Tilak Smarak Mandir, Rohit Deepak Tilak, who conferred the award to him. The award comprises a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh and a memento.

"Poonawalla will be felicitated for his work during the Covid-19 pandemic, wherein he helped in saving many lives by manufacturing Covishield vaccine. Under his leadership, crores of doses of Covishield vaccine were made available to the world in record time. Poonawalla has been at the forefront of making different vaccines at affordable prices," Deepak Tilak said in a statement in July.

The award ceremony is annually held on August 1, on account of Lokmanya Tilak's death anniversary. However, due to the raging Covid-19 situation this year, the date was changed to August 13.

Cyrus Poonawalla, who is the father of SII CEO Adar Poonawalla, founded the Serum Institute of India in 1966. According to Forbes, he is the seventh richest person in India.

The Lokmanya Tilak National Award was first started in 1983. So far, several prominent personalities from different fields such as Indira Gandhi, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Pranab Mukherjee and N R Narayana Murthy have been honoured with it.

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