Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 26

Amid concerns over digital divide playing a spoilsport in COVID19 vaccination drive, the Centre has assured the Supreme Court that it will not be an impediment as persons not having access to internet or digital devices or those unwilling to self-register can visit the nearest vaccination centre to get registered on Co-WIN platform.

“Walk-in (on-site registration) vaccination is permissible for all and digital divide is not a constraint for access to vaccination,” the Centre said in an affidavit filed in the suo motu case on COVID19 management initiated by the Supreme Court.

Noting that approximately, 55 per cent of the population seeks and gets health services from private hospitals and 45 per cent from government hospitals, the Centre said, “In any public health program – be it vaccination or otherwise, involvement of private hospitals is always found desirable.

In an affidavit filed ahead of the June 30 hearing, the Centre said “on-site” registration and “near to home registration” initiatives were not only ideas on paper but were in fact very proactively implemented as the figures of vaccination would demonstrate.

It said out of the total 1,24,969 vaccination centres so far classified by the state governments on Co-WIN as rural centre or urban centre, 93,044 vaccination centres, i.e. 74.45%, are located in rural areas.

Out of the 17,10,18,010 total doses administered through these 1,24,969 vaccination centres in the period from May 1 to June 23, 9,61,84,637 (56.24%) doses have been administered at the rural vaccination centres.

The Supreme Court had earlier criticised the vaccination policy. Holding that Covid-19 Vaccination policy was “prima facie arbitrary and irrational”, a three-judge Bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud had on June 2 asked the Centre to place on record all relevant documents and file notings along with purchase history till date of all jabs, including Covaxin, Covishield and Sputnik V.

Asserting that the Government has made every effort possible to ensure that the people of India have access to safe and  effective vaccines at the earliest, it said, “Two vaccines (Covishield & Covaxin)  have been a part of the vaccination program since January 2021. Another Covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik V developed by M/s Gamaleya Institute,  Russia, has received Emergency Use Authorization by the DCGI, India in  April 2021 and is now being administered in India.

“In addition, some other domestic vaccines such as those from  Biological E and Zydus Cadila are in the late stages of clinical trials and  subject to the regulatory approvals, will further increase the availability of  vaccines. The production capacity of the vaccines under the vaccination  drive is being ramped-up as much as possible and as fast as possible and expected to further increase in the next few months,” it said.