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In mid-January 2021, India embarked on its COVID-19 vaccination mission prioritising doses for health workers as well as frontline workers. In the next phase, India had opened vaccinations for all those who aged above 60 and for those over 45 with co-morbidities. The vaccines were procured by the Government of India (GoI) and disbursed to the states. However, due to vaccine hesitancy only 50% of the eligible group enrolled and India managed to export doses to needy nations from the available stock. In March 2021, the GoI decided to lower the age for vaccine eligibility resulting in demand outstripping the supply. Later from May 1st 2021 onwards all those above 18 were included in the free vaccine programme taking the number to be vaccinated to 900 million (1.8 billion doses). Some analysts noted that the shortcomings in vaccine supplies led to deflection of blame with vaccine manufacturers, in addition, questions over vaccine prices, manufacturing capacity and the destination of supplies were raised. As of June 2021, about 3.9% of the total 1.3 billion people were fully vaccinated and the COVID-19 vaccination programme entered its fifth phase as the GoI expected to vaccinate the entire adult population by the end of 2021 with three approved vaccines to date. Given the circumstances and the challenges, it remained to be seen whether the GoI would be able take advantage of India's status as one of the world's largest suppliers of vaccines and decades of experience in large-scale immunisation, to achieve its target and create a win-win situation for all.