The Central government has informed the Bombay High Court that it is taking the necessary steps to correct the vaccination certificates of those Mumbaikars who fell victim to fake vaccination camps in the city.
An affidavit was submitted before the HC by Satyendra Singh, Undersecretary to the Government of India, Department of Health and Family Welfare, stating that they had received information from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) regarding the fake vaccination scam and received a request to issue correct certificates after the victims had received correct vaccination doses.
“The information on unauthorised vaccination sessions was received from Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. However, the correction utility on CoWin for the same is under process which would be provided to Mumbai district in Maharashtra shortly,” reads the affidavit.
The affidavit was submitted in response to public interest litigations filed by Yogita Vanzara, Siddharth Chandrashekar and few others, seeking the court’s intervention in the issues concerning the booking of vaccination slots on the CoWin vaccination portal and the non-availability of the facility to correct information therein. Vanzara had also prayed that BMC should open booking slots for a week but is doing it on a daily basis.
According to the Central government’s affidavit, they have made provision for mentioning dates of both the doses in CoWin. “There were a few software glitches in the initial period which have since been resolved. Any beneficiary can download the final correct certificate from his account on CoWin,” reads the affidavit.
The Central government’s affidavit further states that soon, a facility will be available on CoWin for correction of vaccination dates appearing on the certificate. One of the PILs had raised the issue that in some cases, the dates appearing on the vaccination certificates were incorrect and there was no way of getting them corrected through the portal.
To this, the affidavit responded: “The utility for correction of vaccination dates is under development and same would be made available.”
Giving an update on the number of vaccination doses provided to Maharashtra in August, the affidavit stated more doses were provided than promised.
According to the affidavit, the Central government had informed in July end that it would supply 86,74,540 doses of vaccines to Maharashtra in August. As against this, it had supplied 91,81,790 doses of vaccines to the state.
Further, the central government has said that it gives advance information to all the states and Union Territories (UTs) so that they (respective states and UTs) can prepare district-wise and CVC-wise (Covid Vaccination Centre-wise) plan for acceleration of vaccination coverage. Apart from providing the dates on which it would supply doses, a break-up of the number of doses of Covishield and Covaxin is also provided, the government informed.
