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 India this month recorded its highest COVID-19 death toll since the
pandemic began last year, accounting for just over a third of the
overall total.
Only about 3% of the country's 1.3 billion people have been fully
vaccinated, the lowest rate among the 10 countries with the most
cases.
Thursday's move will allow imports of shots developed by Pfizer,
Johnson & Johnson and Moderna with which India has been in talks
with little success.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has faced mounting
criticism for its failure to secure vaccines for its people as a
devastating second wave rips through the vast hinterland.
"This is governance failure since India is one of the biggest
vaccine producers," Kaushik Basu, a former chief economic adviser to
the government, wrote on Twitter.
"Good days will come but this vaccine lapse will be remembered."
India has been inoculating its people with the AstraZeneca vaccine
produced locally at the Serum Institute, Covaxin made by local firm
Bharat Biotech, and has begun rolling out Russia's Sputnik V.
But supplies are far short of the millions of doses the world's
second-most populous country needs.
Last month, India pledged to fast-track approvals for foreign
vaccines but its insistence on local trials was a key reason for
stalled discussions with Pfizer.
"The provision has now been further amended to waive the trial
requirement altogether for the well-established vaccines
manufactured in other countries," the government said in a
statement.
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 There was no immediate response
from Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson to
Reuters requests for comment.
The country reported 211,298 new infections on Thursday, still the
world's highest daily rise, but nearly half the daily infections it
recorded earlier this month.
The overall case load is now at 27.37 million, while deaths stand at
315,235, according to health ministry data.
But experts believe that figure grossly underestimates the actual
toll as only people who have tested positive are counted, whereas
many victims were never tested.
The Reserve Bank of India, the central bank, stressed the global
importance of vaccinations in its annual report.
"From this point in time, the global recovery and its outlook,
including for India, will be contingent on the pace and coverage of
vaccination and its efficacy against emerging variants of the
virus," it said.
(Reporting by Neha Arora in New Delhi, Sachin Ravikumar and Anuron
Kumar Mitra in Bengaluru; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Nick Macfie)
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