The central government on Monday opened up Covid-19 vaccination for citizens of foreign countries living in India.

The Centre said that these citizens would need to be registered on the CoWin portal, and use their passport as an identity document for the registration. They would then have to get an appointment to get inoculated, the government said.

“A significant number of foreign nationals are living in India, especially in large metropolitan areas. In these areas, the potential of spread of Covid-19 is high due to higher population density,” it said. “To counter any possibility of such occurrence, it is important to vaccinate all eligible persons.”

India has so far administered 51,29,01,614 Covid-19 vaccine doses with 11,30,24,359 residents getting both the shots, according to government data.

Meanwhile, India on Monday reported 35,499 new cases of coronavirus in a span of 24 hours, taking the tally of infections to 3,19,69,954 since the pandemic broke out in January last year. The number of cases were 9.14% fewer than Sunday’s count of 39,070 infections.

The toll rose to 4,28,309 with 447 deaths in the last 24 hours. The number of active cases declined by 4,634 to 4,02,188, while as many as 3,11,39,457 people have recovered from the disease so far.