Co-Win portal can handle vaccination for all, says RS Sharma

The peak vaccination rate was one million per hour and that translated to a few hundred per second.

The Co-Win vaccine registration portal can handle more users when the vaccination drive is opened to citizens under 45 years, RS Sharma, chairperson of the empowered group on Covid-19 vaccination and head of the Co-Win digital platform, said on Tuesday.

Speaking at the Express Group’s Idea Exchange programme, Sharma said the platform’s tech backbone is extremely scalable and secure and will be able to handle any load. He said the platform will also be able to handle multiple vaccines, once they are approved, without any changes to the software.

Co-Win is a platform for the citizens to register for and schedule their Covid-19 vaccination at the nearest centres and get vaccination certificates.

Sharma said the Co-Win software has been able to take care of four million vaccinations per day done in eight hours. The peak vaccination rate was one million per hour and that translated to a few hundred per second. The software is capable of taking more than 10 million vaccination per day. “We have load tested it for 10,000 concurrent users per second,” Sharma said.

He said that while those vaccinated in the US are issued a handwritten certificate, India has offered a digitally verifiable vaccination certificate with an encrypted QR code. The certificate is digitally verifiable and cannot be spoofed or photocopied, Sharma said.

Even if the vaccine market is opened up for private players, Sharma said the Co-Win app will still be relevant as the process of certification will be carried out on the app. Reservation, appointment and scheduling may not be required, but a certificate will be required on the app, and so the private sector will like to use the digitally non-repudiable, verifiable certificate.