Centre now allows 6 people to register on one number for Covid vaccination
With some registered beneficiaries receiving erroneous messages regarding their vaccination status, the government also has made a provision for revoking vaccination status in the CoWIN system
Six members can now be registered using one mobile number on the CoWIN portal for Covid-19 vaccination up from the current cap of four family members, the government announced on Friday, as it tweaked the IT backbone of its vaccination drive to enable more people to register for vaccinations, and address issues.
“In continuation of updates on various utility features of Co-WIN for the beneficiaries, the following features are added in the self-registration portal of CoWIN: a) registration on Co-WIN – Instead of the existing limit of 4 members, now 6 members can be registered using one mobile number on Co-WIN...” the Union health ministry said in a statement.
With some registered beneficiaries receiving erroneous messages regarding their vaccination status, the government also has made a provision for revoking vaccination status in the CoWIN system.
“A new utility feature has been introduced under ‘raise an issue’ in Co-WIN account through which a beneficiary can revoke the current vaccination status from fully vaccinated to partially vaccinated or unvaccinated and also partially vaccinated to unvaccinated status,” read the health ministry statement.
The ministry clarified that the vaccination status can be corrected by the beneficiaries, where in occasional isolated cases, the vaccination certificates have been generated due to inadvertent data entry errors.
The changes, however, may reflect only 3-7 days after submitting the online request through the ‘raise an issue’ utility on the portal. Such beneficiaries can get their due vaccine dose, as per the existing standard guidelines, once the new vaccination status is successfully updated in the system.
The CoWIN platform was created by upgrading the earlier digital platform used for Universal Immunization Program (UIP) vaccine distribution based on Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) system.
The government has been making changes at regular intervals to the system to make it easier for the beneficiaries to avail of the facility.
“From self-registration, to making changes in personal details, and to be able to download your digital vaccination certificate etc., the system has been modified over a period of time for the ease of beneficiaries; to make the process convenient for them. User feedback has also been important for us as it has helped in making the system better. Initially there were some issues but with time and improvement it is functioning very well,” said a senior government official who asked not to be named.