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Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday urged the Central Government to consider letting States develop their own apps for Covid-19 vaccination.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he has suggested developing state-level apps registration of citizens for Covid-19 vaccination.
Currently, all citizens are required to register nationally on the Centre’s CoWIN app.
“The vaccination drive in Maharashtra has been one of the fastest and most efficient with every stock of the vaccine that the Union Government has kindly supplied to the state at various times in the past few months,” he said in the letter.
"As we plan to open up vaccination for the 18 to 45 age group through the state's procurement, the CoWIN app has seen a sudden surge in the number of citizens wanting to register nationally. There is fear about the app malfunctioning and crashing, as it did on the first day of registration of the age group,” he said.
"We, therefore, propose either a separate app developed by states, where the data can be shared with the Union Government's Ministry of Health or a CoWIN app for each state, developed and assigned by the Centre,” he said.
This would ensure a better interface and experience for citizens keen to take the vaccine shot, he said. The other major challenge highlighted in the letter was that of supplies.
“Maharashtra is willing to procure the requisite stock of vaccines in a single procurement if possible, so as to safeguard our citizens and to give a boost to India’s vaccination programme. However, the producers do not have enough stocks,” said Thackeray.
“If the States are allowed to procure from other manufacturers as well, we would be able to cover a larger population in a shorter time and help reduce the impact of a possible third wave of Covid,” he added.
He further suggested that the ICMR may set the medical framework for the FDAs of each state, within which they could procure the various vaccines available to fight Covid-19.
As of Saturday, 7 am, Maharashtra had administered 1,76,17,719 total doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. Of this, the first doses totalled 1,43,83,450 doses, while the second doses totalled 32,34,269 .
India has so far administered 16,73,46,544 total doses of the vaccine.
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