The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has released a complete manual with instructions for registration for the second phase of the coronavirus vaccination drive, which will cover people above the age of 60 and those above 45 with comorbidities. It is scheduled to begin on Monday.
“The objective of the document is to handhold the citizens to register and schedule an appointment for vaccination,” the government said in the introduction to the manual.
Eligible citizens will be able to register themselves on the Co-WIN 2.0 portal, which is expected to open at 9 am on Monday. They can access it through the mobile application, the government website and the Aarogya Setu app, the manual said. Walk-in registration is also an option.
The user manual, which is available on the health ministry’s website, explains the entire process step by step. First, beneficiaries will provide their phone number so that a one-time password can be generated. After the OTP is validated, the page for registration will appear. Here, the beneficiaries will be required to provide photo IDs, information about comorbidities and other details.
After successful registration, the system will show beneficiaries an “account details” page. They can enter the names of three other people at this step. Next the, beneficiaries can choose vaccination centres by state, district, block and pin code.
Citizens can then download the confirmation. Their appointment for the second vaccine dose will be automatically scheduled after 28 days. “Once the Appointment is fixed, it can be rescheduled at any later stage but before the vaccination appointment day,” the government added.
Read the vaccination user manual here
Private hospitals are allowed to charge Rs 250 for each dose of the vaccine, while inoculation at government hospitals will be free.
Around 10,000 private hospitals under Ayushman Bharat, more than 600 hospitals under the Central Government Health Scheme, and other private hospitals under state governments can function as vaccination sites.
The government also released a list comorbidities according to which people can be prioritised for vaccination.
India had begun the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines on January 16, with a target of inoculating 30 crore people by July. More than 1.43 crore health and frontline workers have been vaccinated against the coronavirus so far.
The country is using the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine, which is produced by the Serum Institute, and Covaxin, a government-backed vaccine developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech whose efficacy is not entirely yet known.
India on Sunday reported 16,752 new coronavirus cases, taking the overall count to 1,10,96,731, government data showed. The new cases were 1.60% higher than Saturday’s count of 16,488. The country’s toll rose to 1,57,051 after 113 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.
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