India administered nearly 81 lakh COVID-19 vaccine doses on Monday, the highest since the beginning of the vaccination campaign on January 16.
The country administered 80.96 lakh vaccines doses as of 8 pm till Monday evening, the first day of the revised guidelines for COVID-19 vaccination coming into effect.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter to express his happiness on the record vaccination numbers. He also congratulated the front-line workers working hard to ensure vaccination for citizens.
India had administered over 28 crore vaccine doses as of 8 am on Monday morning, as per the Health Ministry's data. The country reported 53,256 new cases today, lowest in 88 days.
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According to the revised guidelines, vaccine doses provided free of cost by the Centre will be allocated to states and union territories (UTs) based on criteria such as population, disease burden and the progress of vaccination, and all above the age of 18 will be eligible for free jabs. Any wastage of vaccine will affect the allocation negatively.
The Centre will now procure 75 per cent of the vaccines being produced by the manufacturers in the country.
Centre had earlier allowed states and private hospitals to procure 50 per cent of the vaccines following demands for decentralisation of the process. However, after several states complained of problems including funding, Prime Minister Modi announced revision of vaccine guidelines on June 8.
In order to incentivise production by vaccine manufacturers and encourage new vaccines, domestic vaccine manufacturers are given the option to also provide vaccines directly to private hospitals. This would be restricted to 25 per cent of their monthly production, as per the new guidelines.
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