Rural walk-ins if supply meets demand: RS Sharma | Economic Times

The centre may allow walk-in vaccination against Covid-19 for adults in rural areas once the supply (of vaccines) “satisfies” the demand, a top official told ET.Responding to mounting criticism that the mandatory registration and appointment on the government's vaccine platform CoWin — for those in the 18-44 age group — is excluding people in rural areas and those who are not tech savvy, RS Sharma, chairperson of the empowered committee for administration of Covid-19 vaccine said: “I want to do it (allow walk-ins for this section of the population) but I cannot do it right now.” “What is the guarantee that if we allow walk-ins in rural areas, people from the cities will not surround those areas,” he said.Currently, 57% of Indians who have been vaccinated have walked-in, according to Sharma who pointed out that “the issue is with vaccine availability not CoWin." The government has made it mandatory for 18-44-year-olds to register and seek appointments on CoWin. While officials say registering and prior appointment on CoWin has always been optional for frontline workers, there have been numerous instances of vaccination centres insisting on prior registrations for the 45-plus group as well.Heavy CriticismIndia has vaccinated 187.8 million people as of Thursday.Arguing that the CoWin platform is required to avoid crowding at vaccination centres, Sharma said registration also helps to ensure that people receive both doses of the same vaccine at the right interval and can finally be given a digital vaccination certificate. The CoWin platform has come under heavy criticism in the past few weeks, with citizens complaining that it is leading to a vaccine divide in the country as only the literate and tech savvy are able to book slots. This leaves those in rural areas as well as the urban poor with lesser access to life-saving vaccines, according to digital rights activists who also point to gaps in the technology platform that allows coders to write scripts that automatically book slots or enable alerts whenever slots open up.Last week, digital rights think tank Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC.in) wrote to the Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as well as the National Health Authority raising concerns related to CoWin and how its support is limited only to people who are digitally literate and understand English. “Only 40% of Indians have access to the internet and smartphones, and India suffers from a lack of digital literacy, especially in rural areas. A significant number of people neither have the knowledge nor proper infrastructure to use the app," said Mishi Choudhary, legal director of Software Freedom Law Centre, New York. This mandatory imposition has left the less privileged, those in rural areas and with no knowledge of how an app works without a vaccine, she added.In response to the strident criticism, officials in the health and IT ministries said the government has designed multiple avenues for people who are not technologically savvy to get vaccinated. The MyGov platform is asking people to become CoWin volunteers to help those who are not able to get through Cowin, while in rural areas people also have the option to register at the Common Service Centres (CSC), said an IT ministry official. The network of around four lakh CSCs across rural India have integrated their backend with CoWin and have registered close to 4.3 lakh people already. On Friday, they are also organising a major registration drive for village residents. “The state and the district machinery will try and use their systems to the highest possible limit to get more and more people to come onboard the platform,” said Dinesh Tyagi, MD of CSC e-Governance Services Ltd.