New system to book vaccine slots succumbs to overwhelming traffic in Madurai

MADURAI:  The overwhelming response for the newly-introduced system of pre-booking slots through tele-registration for Covid-19 vaccination at Elango Corporation School led the server to crash on Saturday. Steps are underway to introduce registration through weblink as a supplementary method to book slots.

The tele-registration system by GRH management in association with the civic society ‘Covid-free Madurai’ helps in pre-booking slots to take the vaccine at the centre. “While a maximum of 245 slots per day were booked (on June 3 for vaccination on June 4) one day prior so far through the tele-registration system, the booking process was stopped within a few hours after starting as the servers crashed due to heavy call traffic,” said sources.

JK Muthu who is one of the lead volunteers of ‘Covid-free Madurai’, a civic society that handles the tele-registration system said, “According to the pre-registration system, calls to the helpline number 7823995550 from 9 am to 4 pm would be received by one of the 10 volunteers who would ask the public details such as their name, contact number, age, vaccine preferred and first dose/second dose.

An SMS would be sent in a few minutes allocating the slots. A call takes about two minutes of conversation to book a slot.” At the peak hours of registration, the caller would go through IVRS system where the public are asked to send a message stating the details that are usually asked by volunteers,” he said.

Due to overwhelming response to the pre-booking system, on an average, nearly 20,000 calls are being received from Madurai and several other districts like Chennai, Vellore, Sivaganga, Virudhunagar. “Although we expected the initiative to be successful, the small team did not anticipate and were not prepared for humongous popularity, as  tele-registration was meant for only one centre where nearly 2,000 people made a beeline until before the new system was introduced,” Muthu shared.

Of the total bookings made, there are instances of duplication and nearly 20-30% of them have not turned up for vaccination on the day of slots allotted, he added. He said that despite enormous enthusiasm shown by the public to get vaccinated, the smaller size of the team and technical set-up and shortage of vaccine doses (based on which slots are booked) it is challenging to handle the overwhelming number of calls and to allot a higher number of slots has been a challenge.

Solution
As a solution, another supplementary registration system is on cards, said GRH Dean Dr A Rathinavel. Explaining it, Muthu said, “Following a meeting with Collector S Aneesh Sekhar, it was decided to launch a system of self-registration through web link, in addition to the existing tele-registration system.”