Chennai, Aug 30 (IANS): With about 17 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines in stock, Tamil Nadu is aiming for 5 lakh vaccinations a day from Monday onwards.

According to health officials, the state on Sunday received 5.48 lakh doses of Covishield, giving the confidence for an increased vaccination drive.

The state health department administered 3.3 lakh doses of vaccine on Sunday taking the number of people inoculated in the state to 2.94 crore.

It has also urged the Union government for a one time supply of 1 crore doses of vaccine and is expecting a positive response from the Centre, according to a senior official.

Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma. Subramanian, while speaking to reporters on Sunday, said that the inoculation drive has attained momentum and around 150 villages in the state are fully vaccinated.

He also said that the tourist spots like Tiruvannamalai, Velankanni, Nilgiris, and Nagoor will soon achieve 100 per cent vaccination.

The state has been promoting tourism and had given preference to all the tourist spots for vaccination drives.

It is testing more than 1.6 lakh samples every day and has recorded 1 per cent positivity rate, while the fatality rate for the past three weeks recorded an average of 1.3 per cent.

Tamil Nadu reported 1,538 fresh Covid-19 cases on Sunday.

Coimbatore district with 209 fresh cases on Sunday had the maximum number of infections in the state, with a positivity rate of 2 per cent.

The health department has joined hands with the state police and is strictly monitoring the borders of Kerala where the positivity rate was 19.68 per cent on Sunday with a total number of fresh Covid-19 cases touching 29,836.