BMC DROPS LOCAL VAX APP PLAN, STICKS TO COWIN-20
Civic officials wish to avoid confusion to register for the vaccination drive
To avoid any confusion in order to register for the COVID-19 vaccination drive, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has now decided to not develop any separate application for the drive.
Last year, they had planned to develop an application to smoothen the COVID-19 vaccination process. However, civic officials feel that they are well prepared for the mass vaccination drive that will begin today. They don’t want any confusion and have decided to go ahead with the central government’s CoWIN-20 application.
The decision to develop a separate application was taken by the COVID-19 vaccine task force. The idea was to focus on the beneficiaries of the city, so that they don’t have to entirely rely on the central government’s CoWIN application. However, BMC has now cancelled the proposal to avoid any further confusion.
“We had decided to develop a similar application, which would have helped us control it according to our needs. To avoid any confusion among people about two different applications, we have abandoned the plan. Now, we will solely focus on CoWIN,” said Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, BMC.
Currently, 1.25 lakh healthcare workers have registered themselves for the mass vaccination drive, of which 60,000 are from government hospitals and the rest are from the private hospitals.
City doctors believe there should have been a separate application on the lines of CoWIN for the beneficiaries of the city. It would have not created any problem for the team who will be handling the vaccination drive at the centres. “Currently, we are totally dependent on the central government’s application, which has not been received by the BMC yet. Had there been our own application, it would have been easy to handle. However, we still don’t know how CoWIN functions,” he said.