Infosys, Paytm offer to help with Covid vaccine bookings

BENGALURU: Paytm, Infosys and MakeMyTrip are among companies seeking approval in India to provide online Covid-19 vaccine bookings, the head of the government’s tech platform said, as the country tries to make it easier for its huge population to book shots.

The government relaxed rules last month to potentially allow third-party apps to offer vaccine bookings and has taken back control of procurement from states following delays and shortages. It also faced initial problems with its own vaccine booking platform.

Around 15 state agencies and private firms, which also include healthcare giants Apollo and Max, and online pharmacy 1mg, have asked to be allowed to offer vaccine bookings, RS Sharma, head of the government’s panel managing the CoWIN vaccination registration platform, told Reuters.

Softbank-backed digital payments app Paytm has more than 100 million monthly active users and MakeMyTrip has 12 million.

Their popularity is seen providing more options to Indians looking to book their Covid-19 shots, particularly if they are struggling with an unfamiliar government platform. “It will work in favour of the country, the union of all the entities is better than just one individual platform,” Sharma said.

MakeMyTrip CEO Rajesh Magow said the company wanted to help people book their vaccination slots. 1mg said it was waiting for government approvals. Apollo declined to comment, while Paytm, Infosys and Max did not respond to queries.