About the Book
This book is a first-hand account of how India's COVID-19 Vaccine Program successfully delivered over a billion jabs in less than two years. The authors, in an engaging manner, reveal to the readers those critical levers that led to this phenomenal accomplishment and drew the world’s attention to India. Based on interactions with the key people involved in this mega-crisis time management, it lays bare the strategies and actions that led to the purposeful indigenization of supply chains despite regulatory complexities, time and resource constraints.
The book describes the entire process as it happened, starting from the formation of national expert groups, development of the vaccines and approval processes - including the masterstroke of rolling reviews. The book also presents aspects that critically balanced speed with safety, the funding mechanisms, setting up and operationalizing of the cold chains, human resource mobilization, technology leveraging in the form of apps, public perception management to overcome vaccine hesitancy up to the facility management for final jabs. The authors also identify critical systemic bottlenecks and discuss the recipe for a new normal of decision-making.
The book argues that this large-scale disaster management program was successful because leadership did not get confined to a single individual. Instead it got ‘distributed’ and empowered people at various levels to make, own and execute context-specific decisions - demonstrating a rare, but inspiring model of collective action.
A masterclass of adaptive governance and agile management, this book will be essential reading for management and health professionals, public administrators, business leaders, managers who want to lead successful teams as well as those generally interested in how policy processes work in real time.
Table of Contents:
Introduction - A Race Against Time – India's COVID-19 Vaccine Challenge
Chapter 1: Ground Zero—The Beginning of the Pandemic
Chapter 2: From Fragmentation to Flow: How Administration Aligned
Chapter 3: The Vaccine Sprint: When Speed and Safety Could Not Be Traded
Chapter 4: The Money Behind the Vaccines
Chapter 5: Critical Support Systems: Diagnostics, Essentials, and Cold Chain
Chapter 6: Preparing for Roll-out: People, Places and Platforms
Chapter 7: Rollout Reckoning—Hiccups, Myths, Hesitancy and Solutions
Chapter 8: What Worked, and What Didn’t
Chapter 9: A “brand shift” and a “governance blueprint”
References
Annexure 1: Traditional Vaccine Development: Timelines and Stages
Annexure 2: COVID- 19 Vaccines approved in India
About the Author :
Rajesh Chandwani is Associate Professor at IIM Ahmedabad. Trained as a paediatrician, he researches healthcare Human Resource Management, service quality, IT-enabled delivery, and affordable care. Focusing on pedagogical innovations, he enjoys making films on social issues; his organ donation documentary won Best Documentary at the 71st National Film Awards.
Vinita Sindhwani Satija, Senior Consultant in Public Health, is affiliated with IIM Ahmedabad. With a background in psychology, she works across mental health, nutrition, hospital safety, and health workforce development. She collaborates with civil society and academia to advance holistic, sustainable solutions in public health.
Ranjan Kumar Ghosh is an Associate Professor at IIM Ahmedabad. He works across diverse areas of public policy and societal development management and partners with government/s, business leaders and civil society to advance the cause of sustainable production and healthy consumption.
Review :
From Labs to Jabs is a pioneering account of how India rose to one of humanity’s most unprecedented crises, COVID-19 pandemic, with agility, innovation, and collaboration. The book powerfully illustrates how the government (Sarkaar), society (Samaaj), and industry (Bazaar) came together to turn vision into execution for the world's largest vaccination program at record speed and scale. It offers valuable lessons in governance, risk-taking, and mission-oriented leadership. As India advances toward Viksit Bharat 2047, this work underscores how integrated, mission-driven efforts can help Indian pharma evolve from volume to value leadership. Congratulations to the authors for this outstanding and insightful contribution.
~ Dr. Sudarshan Jain, Secretary General, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA)
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This book captures, with remarkable clarity, the complex interplay of leadership, coordination, and policy during the COVID-19 crisis. Drawing lessons from the Indian experience, it highlights how management principles shaped real-time decision-making in an unprecedented emergency. A valuable resource for policymakers, administrators, and students of public health management.
~ Prof. Dileep Mavalankar, Former Director, Indian Institute of Public Health (Gandhinagar)
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Translating scientific breakthroughs into public health outcomes demands vision, coordination, and effective execution. This book compellingly illustrates how these came together during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, transforming research into large-scale action. It offers insightful lessons on linking science with service delivery, managing operational complexity, and ensuring system responsiveness. A valuable resource for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners shaping resilient, evidence-based public health systems.
~ Dr. Meenu Singh, Director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Rishikesh
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This book offers a clear and insightful account of India’s COVID-19 journey—its challenges, innovations, and achievements. It distils key leadership and public health lessons essential for building a more resilient system. The insights offered here will strengthen our collective capacity for future health emergencies.
~Dr. K. Srinath Reddy, Founder (Past) President, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI)
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India’s COVID-19 vaccination program exemplifies how strong public health systems can deliver at scale when guided by science, strategy, and citizens’ support. This book thoughtfully documents the coordination, innovation, and adaptability that made such an enormous effort possible. It offers valuable lessons for health program managers and policymakers seeking to strengthen last-mile delivery, inter-sectoral collaboration, and crisis preparedness in public health.
~ Ms. Mona Gupta, Advisor HRH & HPIP, National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC)
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From Labs to Jabs presents a sophisticated and impartial description of how India navigated one of the most complex public health challenges in contemporary history. A fascinating account of how a range of stakeholders including scientists, technologists, administrators, policymakers, corporate leaders, and frontline workers collaborated remarkably fast and with immense agility to develop and iterate solutions under intense pressure. The book illuminates the power of collaboration, adaptive governance, and, most importantly, evidence-driven decision-making. It celebrates institutional resilience and individual inventiveness. I applaud the authors for undertaking such an ambitious effort to unravel and document this phenomenon.
~Dr. Priya Seetharaman, Professor - Management Information Systems, IIM Calcutta
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From Labs to Jabs: How Agility, Ability and Adaptability Led to Success of India’s COVID-19 Vaccination Program” captures a remarkable chapter in India’s public health journey, where scientific insight, strategic coordination, and social engagement converged with urgency and purpose. The book provides a scientifically grounded account of India’s evidence-based response to the COVID-19 pandemic, illustrating how translational research, data-driven surveillance, and adaptive policy frameworks enabled one of the world’s largest and most efficient vaccination drives. “Innovation is the heartbeat of a responsive healthcare system”, this book demonstrates how India’s vaccination program harnessed innovation at every level from scientific discovery and digital platforms to community engagement and delivery models. The volume offers valuable lessons in leadership, implementation science, and health systems preparedness, with broader implications for public health and disaster management. By tracing the synergistic link between scientific innovation, operational agility, and community participation, it demonstrates how real-time epidemiological intelligence shaped responsive decision-making. The book stands as a compelling testament to India’s scientific resilience, inter-sectoral collaboration, and capacity for adaptive governance in the face of a global crisis.
Dr. Mona Duggal, Director, ICMR-National Institute for Research in Digital Health and Data Science (NIRDHDS).
