DW BUREAU / Chandigarh A 20-year-old sanitation worker received the first shot of the coronavirus vaccine as the inoculation drive commenced in Chandigarh on Saturday. Arun, who works as a sweeper at the Government Multi-Specialty Hospital at Sector 16, said he was feeling good and had no worry before being administered the jab.After administering the vaccine, the youth was kept for observations for 30 minutes to check any side effects. "There is no anxiety, rather I am feeling good," said Arun, who was also given a bouquet of flowers. The vaccination drive was conducted at five sites in Chandigarh. One was at the Government Multi-Specialty Hospital at Sector 16, civil hospital at Sector 45, two sites at Government Medical College and Hospital at Sector 32 and one at advanced paediatric centre at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), officials said. Around 500 healthcare workers will be vaccinated on the first day of the drive, they said. A doctor working at the PGIMER who also received the shot said he was happy that the vaccine had finally come and would be administered to all healthcare and frontline workers. On apprehensions about side effects, Randhawa asserted that there was "no such worry" as this vaccine had been developed properly in a scientific way. The Union territory has received 12,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine and health authorities provided 1,000 doses to the PGIMER.The vaccination drives also began in Punjab and Haryana. Thousands of healthcare and sanitary workers at the frontline of India's COVID-19 battle got their first jabs on Saturday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out the world's largest vaccination drive against the pandemic, showing the light at the end of a 10-month tunnel that upended millions of lives. More than one crore cases and 1.5 lakh fatalities later, India took its first steps out of the pandemic with shots of the Covishield and Covaxin vaccines being administered at medical centres across the country to a collective sigh of relief that this could finally be the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 trauma. Sanitation worker Manish Kumar became the first recipient of the vaccination drive at Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the Health Ministry said. "I had good sleep last night, came here (hospital) in the morning and talked to the other staff who were to get the shot," the 34-year-old who got a shot of the indigenously developed Covaxin told PTI. "Many of them were scared. So I went to my seniors and said I should be given the vaccine first. I wanted to prove to my colleagues that there is no need to be scared," he added as speculation swirled in some quarters about safety levels. Injecting confidence in the people, several high profile persons, including AIIMS director Randeep Guleria, NITI Aayog member V K Paul, who is also head of an empowered group on medical equipment and management plan to tackle the coronavirus. (editor@dailyworld.in)