People wait for their turn to get Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination centre.

India administered nearly 81 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines on Day 1 of the Centre’s new vaccination regime on Monday. Data on the government’s CoWin website showed a total of 8,096,492 vaccine jabs were administered till 9 pm on Monday. The number is expected to rise further.

In a tweet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “Today’s record-breaking vaccination numbers are gladdening. The vaccine remains our strongest weapon to fight COVID-19. Congratulations to those who got vaccinated and kudos to all the front-line warriors working hard to ensure so many citizens got the vaccine. Well done India.”

Today’s record-breaking vaccination numbers are gladdening. The vaccine remains our strongest weapon to fight COVID-19. Congratulations to those who got vaccinated and kudos to all the front-line warriors working hard to ensure so many citizens got the vaccine.

Well done India!
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 21, 2021

This is a new record for the highest Covid vaccines administered in a single day. The previous high was of over 48 lakh doses on April 1.

Under the new vaccination policy, the Centre will procure 75 per cent of vaccines from the manufacturers, leaving the rest 25 per cent to the private players. The Centre will also provide vaccines for all age groups to the states based on their requirement.

Earlier, the Centre used to supply free vaccines to only people aged 45 and above. It was the responsibility of state governments to procure and administer 50 per cent of the vaccines for citizens between the ages of 18 to 45.

In a statement, the government said that during the month of May, more than 7.9 crore vaccines were available for the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination exercise. These were ramped up to 11.78 crore in June. These include the free supply of vaccines to states and UTs from the Centre, those directly procured by the states and those directly procured by the private hospitals.

“States were provided advance visibility of the vaccine doses available to them in the month of June 2021 by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This advance information enabled the States to prepare vaccine distribution plans district-wise and COVID Vaccination Centre (CVC) wise in an effective manner. This facilitated a massive ramping up of the vaccine administration across the country,” the statement read.