Vaccination of persons without prescribed identity cards through CoWIN
On 6th May, 2021 the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released the procedure to be complied with for people who do not possess any of the seven identity cards as required under the CoWIN portal. It was emphasised that vaccination services may not be denied in the absence of identity proof. The procedure has been given below-
Such groups of people include nomads (including sadhu/saints from various religions), prison inmates, inmates in Mental Health Institutions, citizens in Old Age Homes, road side beggars, people residing in rehabilitation centres/camps and any other identified eligible persons, aged 18 years or more, and not having any of the seven prescribed individual Photo ID Cards.
District Task Force may identify such groups of persons in respective districts not having any of the prescribed individual Photo ID Cards with assistance from concerned government department/ organisation like department of minority affairs, social justice, social welfare etc.
The information regarding the identified groups and the number of beneficiaries to be covered, must be collated at the state level and the state government must issue clear instructions for implementation of these SOPs along with the district-wise estimated maximum number of doses to be administered using this special dispensation. A copy of such instructions must be displayed in public domain and should also be endorsed to the Ministry.
A Key Facilitator may also be identified for each such group. The Key Facilitator must have a valid and active mobile phone and must also have at least one of the seven mandated ID cards. These could be officials of the institutions (both public or private) which normally provide care and services to people in the identified groups, e.g. Prison officials for prison inmates, Executive Officer/Superintendent of and Old Age Home etc.
A district nodal officer may be designated by the DTF, for identification of Key Facilitators, preparation of vaccination plan, identification of CVCs where vaccination sessions are to be organised, preparation of vaccination schedule, communication of vaccination schedule to the identified groups/beneficiaries and mobilization of beneficiaries as per vaccination plan.
District Immunization Officer (DIO) will be responsible for organization of vaccination sessions at identified CVCs for providing coverage to the identified groups.
The CoWIN system will provide the facility for creation of special vaccination sessions for this purpose. The session will have following features –
Registration of as many beneficiaries as are to be covered (subject to the limit of session capacity), without mandatory capturing of Mobile Number and Photo ID Card, through facilitated cohort registration.
All vaccination slots in such special sessions will be reserved for vaccination of such facilitated cohorts.
This facility will only be available at government CVCs.
Information such as name, year of birth (as provided by the beneficiary) and gender will be entered in the CoWIN system for the beneficiaries.
The Key Facilitator shall verify the identity of the beneficiaries.
Digital vaccination certificates are to be provided to the beneficiaries, preferably at the Vaccination Center itself.
The District Nodal Officer will be personally responsible to ensure that the special dispensation provided through these instructions, is extended only to cover such persons who do not have any of the seven mandated Photo ID Cards.
Vaccine doses made available through the Government of India channel may be used for vaccination of beneficiaries aged 45 years or more and the vaccine doses procured by the State/UT Government may be used for those aged 18 years to 44 years.
