CoWin registration: Our system neither crashed nor slowed down, says RS Sharma

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The third phase of Indian vaccination drive commences from May 1. All adults (18 years and above) will now be eligible to take the jab in this phase.

Registration for vaccination began on April 28 via central government’s Co-WIN platform, Aarogya Setu and Umang apps. However, due to lack of information on vaccine availability in different states, people were unable to book an appointment.

On the first day, the Co-WIN app reportedly crashed due to excessive load on the website as there were many complains of delayed OTPs from users across India. So is the vaccine registration on track and has the government been able to overcome the initial glitches?

“More than 2.5 crore people have registered on the Co-WIN platform in the last 48-72 hours. Almost 2 crore of these are expected to from the age group of 18-44 years. How were we able to enroll such huge numbers if our system crashed? Its a preconceived notion that government platforms always slow down or crash but none of this was experienced by us during vaccination registration,” RS Sharma, CEO of National Health Authority told Money9 in an exclusive interview.

CoWin upgraded

Sharma said the Co-WIN platform was upgraded recently and was running absolutely fine. Details like vaccine prices, different centers for 18-44 years and 45 years plus and other such additional details were also being displayed on the platform.

Apart from the two per-existing vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, Centre gave an emergency authorization to Russia’s Sputnik V on April 13. This is also expected to roll out in the Indian markets in May.

Choice of vaccine

So will people get an option to choose the vaccine of their choice on the Co-WIN platform ahead?

“As and when new vaccines are made available, our system will automatically incorporate its data that includes the price and hospitals where it will be available. People can scan through the options and choose a vaccine of their choice too,” Sharma said.

The Co-WIN platform is an API-based system based on four primary components – registration, vaccination, hospital on-boarding and digital certificate download.