BHUBANESWAR : In the absence of any measures to address the technical glitches on the CoWIN portal, problems faced by the beneficiaries in booking vaccination slots online under the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) jurisdiction has only worsened.
People are now questioning the transparency in the booking system. On Thursday, BMC announced that new slots on the CoWIN portal will be opened for booking at 7 pm. People who remained glued to their smartphones and computer systems to book slots complained that no slots were available for booking till around 7.10 pm on the CoWIN portal. Although after some time a few slots were open for booking in the designated session sites, beneficiaries found them booked immediately after logging in.
The civic body was flooded with complaints about beneficiaries, especially in the age group of 18-44, facing problems in booking the slots on different platforms including Twitter. The officials, however, remained tight-lipped.
Despite numerous such complaints in the past about technical errors in booking slots online for vaccination in the Capital city, the civic body has failed to take any concrete measures to address the issue. A section of beneficiaries questioned management of the online system alleging pre-booking of slots in offline mode.
However, a senior BMC official in Covid management refused the allegations and claimed that all slots were booked within seconds as there has been increasing demand for vaccination. Meanwhile, to ramp up vaccination programmes and make it hassle-free in the city, the BMC opened two more drive-in vaccination centres, one at BDA Kalyan Mandap and the other at Fortune Towers. The vaccination at these two centres for 45+ age group will start from Friday.
816 prisoners infected in jails across State
Bhubaneswar: As many as 816 prisoners have been infected in jails across the State during the second wave of Covid-19. Of them 429 have recovered till May 26. However, no infection has yet been reported from 54 out of 87 jails in the State, said the Directorate of Prisons and Correctional Services on Thursday. It said all sub-jails in the State have been given Rs 15,000 each for procuring medicines and kits for Covid-19. Similarly, all district and special jails have been provided Rs 25,000 each for the purpose. “Emphasis is being laid on regular sanitisation, cleaning and disinfection of wards in prisons.
The critically-ill inmates are being shifted to Covid hospitals as per the protocol of the Health and Family Welfare department,” said DG Prisons, Santosh Kumar Upadhyay. The health condition of inmates is being reviewed periodically by chief district medical officers and sub-collectors. The situation in jails from where positive cases have been reported is being monitored regularly, said Upadhyay. The capacity of all the jails in the State is 19,824 but the inmates lodged in them was 20,150 as on May 1. As per the measures taken by the high power committee, the inmates’ population in the jails across the State was reduced to 18,580 on May 26.