COVID-19 Vaccination: Glitches In Slot Booking Leave Bhubaneswar Citizens Livid

Bhubaneswar: To ramp up vaccination COVID-19, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) opened two more drive-in vaccination centres, one at BDA Kalyan Mandap and the other at Fortune Towers.

The vaccination for 45 plus age group started at these two centres started on Friday.

However, booking a slot has become a herculean task with the slots vanishing within minutes of opening. Many in the capital city who have been trying to book slots have failed in their last three attempts.

Laxmidhar Sethy of Infocity area and Prasanna Khuntia of Unit I under BMC  remained hooked to their gadgets on May 27 evening hoping to book a slot after two failed attempts. This also failed. Their attempt to get their 18+ children vaccinated continues to face hurdles due to glitches in the CoWIN app.

The government should give priority to 18+ citizens in drive-in as this group is more at threat in the second wave, they added

Ask them what are the hurdles, they said the slots showed booked soon after they logged in. On May 19 too they faced the same hurdle. “We are willing to go anywhere in the BMC limits to get our children vaccinated but we are not getting one.”

Although after some time a few slots were open for booking in the designated session sites, beneficiaries found them booked immediately after logging in.

Santosh Jena, a resident of Kalpana area in the city, said he has been waiting to get his wife (18-44 age group) vaccinated but has not able to get a a slot as yet. “I and my wife were hooked to our mobiles but soon after the site opened most of the slots showed red and by 7.10 pm it was over. I was trying to get a slot anywhere in the BMC limits but that too did not happen,” he said.

People poured out their anger on the BMC Twitter handle but there was no response from the officials.

A section of beneficiaries questioned management of the online system alleging pre-booking of slots in offline mode.

A senior BMC official in COVID management refused the allegations and claimed that all slots were booked within seconds as there has been increasing demand for vaccination, quoted The New Indian Express.