A CUSTOM MAP TO HELP FIND REMOTE VACCINE SITES IN GB NAGAR

NOIDA: Greater Noida West resident 28-year-old Sukeerti Bauthiyal had booked her vaccination slot for May 20 at the Community Health Centre, Dadri.

On the assigned day, she entered the location into an online map service and followed its directions.“it did not take me even close to the site. I had to ask people to direct me to the centre,” said Baunthiyal.

Many people have also tweeted about not finding their centres on the online map.

Sector 52 resident Deepanshu Singh (32) decided to do something about it. Singh says that while the addresses mentioned on the CO-WIN portal are correct, some locations on online maps are incorrect, which is quite common. “Some centres that are in remote areas or urban villages may be hard to find,” he said.

Singh, a public policy adviser who assists the Gautam Budh Nagar administration on technical issues, said, “I geo-tagged the vaccination centres in GB Nagar to show their accurate locations on a customised online map, and also tagged the sites that offered the Covaxin stock (every site has Covishield stock).”

The locations also come with photos to help people recognise the centre. The custom maps can be accessed at bit.ly/ Gbnvaccination and bit.ly/ Gbnvaccination2.

The Gautam Budh Nagar administration currently has 80 vaccination centres of which 59 are for 18-45 age group, including 10 drive-through sites. Singh’s map has 33 sites.

Recognising Singh’s contribution, Gajendra Singh, the vaccination nodal officer for the district, said it would help the district achieve its vaccination targets.

“We aim to be the first district in the country to achieve full vaccination of the 18-45 age group, which is almost 1.6 million people,” he said.

The district has, till date, vaccinated 181,211 people in this age group, according to official data on the CO-WIN portal.

On Friday, the district administration vaccinated 14,180 people of which 11,476 were under 18-45 category.