Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold meeting with Chief Ministers of states today after the vaccine rollout begin on Saturday.
This will be the first meeting of PM Modi with the Chief Ministers after two vaccines were cleared for emergency use by the drug regulator DCGI last week.
Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Pune based-Serum Institute of India’s Covishield – were cleared for emergency use by the DCGI.
In a tweet, PM Modi had said, “On 16th January, India takes a landmark step forward in fighting COVID-19. Starting that day, India’s nation-wide vaccination drive begins. Priority will be given to our brave doctors, healthcare workers, frontline workers including Safai Karamcharis.”
The Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) had held a VC with administrators from States and UTs on the CoWIN software which forms the backbone of the last-mile vaccine administration.
The meeting was chaired by Ram Sewak Sharma, Chairman of Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management to combat COVID-19 and member, National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration of COVID-19.
During the meeting, the feedback of the States/UTs on the Co-WIN software and its operational use, emanating from the dry runs, was discussed in detail.
On January 2, almost all states and Union Territory conducted dry run at 285 session sites spread across 125 districts to assess ability and readiness of authorities to administer shots to hundreds of millions of people, including many in remote corners of the country.
It was conducted to test the end-to-end planned operations and the mechanism that has been set up to ensure smooth conduct of the Covid-19 vaccination.