Rajasthan seeks spot registration for beneficiaries due to glitches in CoWIN app

The glitches in the CoWIN application have affected the vaccination drive in Rajasthan. The second day of the inoculation program saw 11,288 health workers of the 68.7% of targeted beneficiaries, which works out to 5 percentage points less than the first day.

With the Covid-19 vaccination drive in Rajasthan going through hiccups due to technical glitches in the CoWIN app, the state government has urged the Centre to allow on-the-spot registration of beneficiaries.

India is administering two vaccines as part of the first phase of Covid-19 immunisation covering roughly 30 million health care and other frontline workers. (AFP)

The glitches in the CoWIN application have affected the vaccination drive in Rajasthan. The second day of the inoculation program saw 11,288 health workers of the 68.7% of targeted beneficiaries, which works out to 5 percentage points less than the first day when 12,258 or 73.8% of health workers were vaccinated.

Nearly 15 AEFI (adverse event following immunization) cases surfaced in the state on the second day. A total of 23,546 people have been vaccinated across the state in the first two days, according to official data.

A senior doctor on condition of anonymity said the CoWIN application does not work effectively and has several problems. The beneficiaries are not receiving messages of vaccination on time and later were being called over the telephone to reach the vaccination centres.

“We have asked the Centre to allow vaccinating through on-the-spot registration as there is some technical snag with the software,” said Dr Sudheer Bhandari, Principal SMS Medical College.

He said a number of frontline workers are queuing up but unfortunately as per the directions, offline registration is not yet allowed. There is a lot of enthusiasm among the healthcare workers to enrol for the vaccination drive, he added.