Covid-19: Sluggish CoWIN app leaves millions waiting in India, Maharashtra ministers angry

The disastrous performance of the Indian government's CoWIN app, which mostly fails to register bookings for Covid vaccines at hospitals across the country, has been widely condemned by ministers in Maharashtra.

“Over 1.3 billion Indians are compelled to register from a single, central app,” said Jayant Patil, the water resources minister and state president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). “The technical issues and errors being reported daily about the CoWIN app are causing inconvenience to millions of people in the country as well as in the state.”

Another NCP leader and minister, Nawab Malik, pointed out that over 450,000 senior citizens were still waiting for their second dose because of the slow supply of vaccines. “There are massive queues outside vaccination centres in the state, with lakhs of despondent senior citizens gathering to receive their second dose. Vaccine stocks are depleted because the Centre cannot provide states with the requisite supply.

If the Modi government did not have the capacity to fulfil its obligations, why did it announce the third phase of vaccination for those in the 18-44 age group from May 1, he asked.

According to Patil, people are fed up with the inordinate delays while trying to log in to book for a vaccination slot. “These are extremely serious issues at a time when rapid vaccination is being widely touted as a solution to rein in the virus,” he added.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allow states to develop their own apps for registration for the vaccination, but there has been no response so far.

Frustrated by the ham-handed way in which the app functions, thousands of people in Mumbai, Pune and other cities head out to smaller towns and villages hundreds of kilometres away, hoping to get their vaccine shots. Unfortunately, many are turned away from those places as well.

Balasaheb Thorat, the revenue minister and Congress leader, also backed the demand for Maharashtra creating its own app. “There is increasing confusion over booking slots in the state due to the technical problems of the CoWIN app,” he said. “Tech-savvy citizens have an edge over rural folk, and this has seen people from big cities travelling hundreds of kilometres to small talukas to get themselves vaccinated, sparking anger among the rural populace.”

Worse, many rural areas are now lagging behind in terms of vaccination, as city-dwellers crowd their centres, he added.

• India