Lok Shakti

Nationalism Always Empower People

Paytm, MakeMyTrip, Infosys offer to help India book COVID vaccine

Paytm, Infosys and MakeMyTrip are among companies seeking approval to provide online COVID-19 vaccine booking in India, the head of the government’s tech platform said, as the country tries to make it easier for its vast population to book shots. does. The government last month relaxed rules to potentially allow third-party apps to offer vaccine bookings and took back control of procurement from states after delays and shortages. It also faced initial problems with its own vaccine booking platform. Around 15 state agencies and private companies, including Indian healthcare giants Apollo and Max, and online pharmacy 1mg, have asked for permission to offer vaccine bookings, according to the government’s panel managing the CoWIN vaccination registration platform. Chief RS Sharma told Reuters. . SoftBank-backed digital payments app Paytm has over 100 million monthly active users and MakeMyTrip has 12 million. His popularity is seen giving Indians more options to book their COVID-19 shots,

Especially if they are battling an unfamiliar government platform. “It will work in favor of the country, union of all institutions is better than just an individual platform,” Sharma said. MakeMyTrip CEO Rajesh Mago said the company wants to help people book their vaccination slots. 1mg said it is awaiting government approval. Apollo declined to comment, while Paytm, Infosys and Max did not respond to queries from Reuters. Only 3.5% of India’s 1.3 billion population is fully immunized against COVID-19 and health officials say the pace will have to be accelerated to avoid a further deadly surge of the virus, such as in the country in the spring. Washed away. Although much will depend on whether the supply of vaccines has accelerated, But experts say more booking options should help. Many software developers are already using publicly available coding for the CoWIN platform to create such tools.

Which send telegram alerts to help people to book slots. “Right now, even if you get a slot using alerts, you still have to visit the government website and follow a number of steps. Companies will be able to deliver a better user experience than CoWIN,” said Bertie Thomas, a software developer who designed Telegram Alerts to inform people about the slots. Paytm has also enabled the notification feature on its app. Sharma said the supply of the vaccine should go ahead and praised the CoWIN platform, adding that at least three African countries – Zambia, Nigeria and Malawi – had inquired about using it for their own vaccination campaigns . “We will give them the portal free of cost and they can customize. It is highly scalable,” Sharma said. .