50% of vax centers face connectivity issues, 21% online target achieved

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Reliance Jio’s network being down for many hours on Wednesday not only affected the businesses and normal routines of many people, but also affected the vaccination campaign in the city, as around 50% of centers encountered problems during registration of beneficiaries.

Many centers, especially in rural areas, were severely affected as they depended on Jio’s mobile network to gain connectivity with the CoWIN portal.

Problems due to Jio’s network failure affected the city’s vaccination target, and the health department was only able to meet 21 percent of its planned target. No less than 15,514 people were vaccinated Wednesday while the department had a target of 70,000.

“Yes, the Jio network problem affected the immunization work as many centers depended on a mobile internet connection or connected via a dongle. We had established around 130 centers in urban areas and 150 centers in rural areas for immunization on Wednesday, and about 50 percent of the centers struggled to connect. Centers with broadband facilities did not encounter any problems, but centers in remote areas and some centers in urban areas also encountered problems. Not only in Indore, but a similar situation also prevailed throughout the state. After discussing with senior officials in Bhopal, we allowed offline registrations of beneficiaries to continue the vaccination campaign, ”said Dr Tarun Gupta, district immunization manager.

The offline enrollment plan did not go well

The plan to do offline registrations for beneficiaries did not work well as many people refused to do the same. When registering offline, beneficiaries do not receive a real-time vaccination certificate as it would be generated after updating the data on the CoWIN portal and many people do not trust this method. Large numbers of people refused to receive the vaccine without a vaccination certificate, lowering the overall immunization figures for the day

Sarv Pitra Amavasya, too, took the wheel

Vaccination manager Dr Tarun Gupta said Sarv Pitra Amavasya was also one of the reasons for the low participation in vaccination as many people were busy performing the rituals at their homes.

Posted on: Thursday October 07, 2021 09:50 IST