The online registrations at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Research and Education (PGIMER) Chandigarh are apparently finding few takers due to ignorance.

Nearly every year around 25 lakh people enlist themselves at the PGIMER for getting treatment at the New Outpatient Office (OPD), Advanced eye center OPD, Advanced Pediatrics Centre, Advanced Cardiovascular Centre, Dental Centre and De-Addiction Centre.

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But ever since the launch of the online-registration two years back, only two lakh patients have registered for the OPD even as on average over seven thousand patients come for the OPD on a daily basis from northern states including Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttrakhand. On Thursday, the number of patients attended in the OPD was 10,917. The majority of these patients stand in the long queues, sometimes many for hours, to get the registration done even as online-registration helps the job done in a few minutes.

A senior PGIMER official said online registration was not even close to 10 per cent of the total registration despite the fact that it saves patients or their relatives from standing in long queues for the registration.

For the on-line registration, a patient is required to go to the PGIMER website, fill his personal details and name of the OPD department he intends to take treatment. After this, a patient is given an online-registration number using which he or she can go to the on-line registration counter and get his registration slip within no time.

“We are constantly telling the people to get themselves registered online for the OPD. But they fail to attempt it as they are not technological friendly,” said Dr Ritesh Aggarwal, Department of Pulmonary Medicine, who is head of the hospital computerisation project.

“By enlisting on the web, one can spare time as they need not remain in long lines, but rather then they need to sit tight for the specialist. In this way, individuals who are enrolling on the web are not getting need over others. We are trying to come up with various advertising strategies which is help in creating awareness among people,” he added.