CoWIN shall form foundation of Covid-19 inoculation drive: Centre to States, UTs

As part of preparations for the nationwide rollout of Covid-19 vaccine, the health ministry on Sunday held a video conference with officials from states and Union Territories to discuss feedback on the Co-WIN software and its operational use gathered from the vaccination dry runs.

The Centre on Sunday said Co-WIN, an online platform for monitoring Covid-19 vaccine delivery, shall form the foundation for the anti-coronavirus inoculation drive which shall be citizen-centric so that the vaccine is available anytime and anywhere. India will launch its Covid-19 vaccination drive from January 16 in what Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called the world’s largest inoculation programme with priority to be given to nearly three crore healthcare and frontline workers.

The meeting was chaired by Ram Sewak Sharma, the chairman of Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management to combat Covid-19 and member of National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration of Covid-19. (Representative Image) (Reuters file photo)

As part of preparations for the nationwide rollout of Covid-19 vaccine, the health ministry on Sunday held a video conference with officials from states and Union Territories to discuss feedback on the Co-WIN software and its operational use gathered from the vaccination dry runs.

Giving an overall view of the CoWIN software and the principles that shall underpin the technology backup for the vaccination exercise, he said robust, dependable and agile technology shall form both the foundation and the back-up for the country’s Covid-19 vaccination drive. “The process should be citizen-centric and built on an approach that the vaccine shall be available anytime and anywhere,” Sharma was quoted as saying in a statement.

About the use of the Aadhaar platform, Sharma advised the states to urge the beneficiaries to seed their current mobile number with Aadhaar for registration and consequent communication through SMS.