Answer:

On 19 April 2021, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) made public the details of India’s COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy, which focused on the scale and speed for the third phase. The National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC), chaired by Dr V K Paul, Member of the NITI AAYOG, had played a key role in designing the strategy. The first phase of India’s COVID-19 mass inoculation programme was launched on 16 January, covering an estimated 30 million healthcare and front-line workers. On the first of March, the country initiated the second phase, aiming to cover people above-45 with co-morbidities and the cohort above 60. This was expanded on 1 April to cover everyone above 45 years, bringing the total to over 300 million people. While this number accounted for only 22 percent of the population, they were also the high-risk and most vulnerable, accounting for 80 percent of recorded Covid mortality in the country.[2] The expected TIMEFRAME for completing the vaccination drive was six months from the launch.