The Maharashtra government will not remove Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s photograph from COVID-19 vaccination certificates, but the state should be allowed to design its own software application for registering citizens for inoculation, minister Nawab Malik said on Thursday.
In a video statement, Minority Affairs Minister Malik claimed technical glitches in the use of the Centres CoWIN app, the digital backbone of the nationwide vaccination drive, leading to difficulties in people registering themselves for getting jabs.
Vaccination is being carried after registration. The (CoWIN) app is crashing…we have demanded that the state be allowed to design its separate system (app) so that we can vaccinate people by registering through the app and other means, he said.
Malik, also the NCPs national spokesperson, said the Centre has not yet given permission to the state to develop its own application.
If the Centre is concerned that we will remove Modiji’s photograph from the certificate, then we assure it that we will not.
“At least we should be given the responsibility of designing our own system and monitoring it, he added.
Maharashtra, the worst COVID-19-affected state in the country, has so far administered 1,91,73,383 shots of vaccines against COVID-19 (till May 12), according to state government data.
Surjitt Sahani
