Booster jab for CoWIN: Portal upgraded to handle 1 crore registration daily

Even as India sees a worrying resurgence in the number of reported Covid-19 cases, the Indian government is getting ready to further expand the ongoing vaccination process. The CoWIN portal, which is India's nodal platform for the complete vaccination programme, has been improved to handle one crore registrations and help vaccinate at least 50 lakh persons per day.

According to the Indian government, the portal's handling capacity has been scaled up as it has allowed vaccination for anyone aged 45 or above.

This phase kicks in from April 1.

Software tweaked to make registration easy

Reports also have it that the user interface on the registration platform has been improved. Further, the government said that other existing features have been tweaked for easy understanding and accessibility to the larger bulk of the population that would doubtless make a beeline to the portal as the vaccination process kicks into overdrive.

The portal's software has also been changed and there is no need for uploading the comorbidity certificate at the time of registration.

It has also done away with the automatic booking of slots for the second jab of the vaccine. People can now register for it within 6-8 weeks of their first dose.

An hourly monitoring mechanism has been put in place to track the progress of vaccination drives.

Over 6 crore vaccinated till now

As of now, daily vaccination in India is pegged around the 30 lakh mark. This is expected to nearly double in the coming days.

India has so far vaccinated over six crore people since January 15 when it first began vaccinating healthcare and other frontline workers.

The highest vaccination in a day was registered on March 22 when close to 27.5 lakh people got the first dose while three lakh people got their the second dose.

But one of the complaints has been that registering on the platform is time-consuming and the system is slow to respond.

Aside from new people seeking vaccination, those requiring the second jab will also start registering.

In the event, it was imperative that the government scaled up the backend operations of the portal.

The CoWIN platform was jointly developed and run by the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Electronics and IT.