New Delhi: In yet another fantastic initiative by the Central Government to ease the vaccination programme in India, it launched a new feature on its CoWIN portal where one can check their vaccination status anytime, anywhere.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare announced on Twitter last evening that they have activated the service on CoWIN which will now allow citizens to check their vaccination status by just putting in their registered mobile number and name, followed by an OTP (one time password). “Now download the fully / partially vaccinated badge from CoWIN (cowin.gov.in) & share it with your friends on all your social platforms! Encourage your family and friends to follow you and #FightCovid,” National Health Authority CEO R.S. Sharma said in a tweet.

The feature can be utilised even by service providers, such as travel agencies, offices, employers, entertainment agencies, or government agencies such as IRCTC, “for whom verifying a person’s vaccination status is critical for facilitating a service requested by the citizen”, an official said.

The facility has been set up to assist citizens who might not have received their vaccine certificates in digital or in paper for availing a specified service. It will also help service providers verify the vaccination status/vaccination digital record of citizens as per the authorised permission of the requesting entity.

The Ministry claimed that this service will help in resuming and catalyzing the economic activities by verifying a person’s vaccination status without revealing the beneficiary’s protected health data. Service may be enabled via open APIs or no-code webpage integration that CoWIN has created for private or Govt. service providers to retrieve a person’s vaccination status.

Some advantages

1. It helps in verifying the vaccination status of individuals. The vaccination status can be fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated, or not vaccinated.

2. It can be utilised by travel agencies to help make travel safe for individuals by allowing travel only for vaccinated individuals.

3. Employers can use it to verify vaccination status of employees and resume functions in offices, workplaces, etc. 4. It will help resume and catalyse the economic activities in the country.