This was announced by the Indian Health Ministry on Thursday, after the Health Secretary chaired a high-level meeting with top officials of all the states and the central government-controlled territories.

"Around 96,000 vaccinators have been trained for this dry run. An important focus of the dry run will be on management of any possible adverse events following immunisation," read a statement from the Ministry.

This drive will also test the operational feasibility in the use of Co-WIN (Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network) application in the field environment, it added.

On December 28-29, the Indian government carried out a similar dry run in the states of Punjab in the north, Assam in the northeast, Andhra Pradesh in the south and Gujarat in the west.

Also read: India announces two-day dry run of Covid immunisation drive

Each of the four states had carried out the dry run in two of their districts to check the preparedness in various types of medical settings such as district hospitals, rural and urban community health centres and private hospitals.

The two-day dry run also focussed on cold storage and transportation arrangements for the vaccine, crowd management at immunisation sites as well as dealing with any post-vaccination complications.

Also read: Covid-19: India’s total caseload surpasses 10 million

Earlier this month, Indian Health Minister Harsh Vardhan had said that the government would start the vaccination drive in the next six to seven months.

The National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration of Covid-19 (NEGVAC) has recommended three prioritised population groups, including healthcare workers (about one crore), frontline workers (about one crore), and senior citizens for phase 1 of vaccination.

Also read: Global COVID-19 cases exceed 82 million

India's cumulative Covid case count now stands at 1.3 million, with nearly 1.5 lakh deaths.