At least two persons in Maharashtra's Pune City have received COVID-19 vaccination certificates without getting even a single dose of the vaccine.
Satya Natrajan, a city-based activist who had registered his 70-year-old mother-in-law on the CoWIN app for vaccination, is one among them.
“We took an appointment by registering online at the CoWin portal, but after reaching the inoculation centre at Phursungi Public Health Centre (PHC), the authorities informed that due to shortage of vaccines they won’t be able to service us.”Satya Natrajan
Disappointed by the PHC's management, Natrajan asked for the next available date and left for home. "However after three hours, I received an SMS saying my mother-in-law has already been vaccinated and we can download her certificate," said Natrajan.
The Quint couldn’t independently verify the COVID vaccination certificate which he downloaded from CoWin’s server.
Natrajan immediately dialled the CoWin helpline number 1075 to report the problem, but it failed to connect.
Despite repeated attempts, The Quint couldn’t connect to the CoWin helpline number either.
In Maharashtra’s Wagholi, Alok Raut, too, received a certificate without getting vaccinated. Narrating his ordeal, Raut said that his 61-year-old father did not even visit the inoculation centre but had already received the certificate on 10 April from Wadebolhai PHC.
Taking to Twitter, Alok said: "My father has registered for COVID vaccination and is yet to be vaccinated. Vaccination certificate is generated even though he hasn’t visited the centre! Strange! Is this a scam?"
Operators to Blame, Say Officials
The Quint spoke to Dr Sachin Suryavanshi, in-charge of PHC Wadebolhai who admitted that operators sometimes make the mistake of releasing the COVID certificates. “Sometimes the operators in charge makes errors while updating the database, this is the reason problem might have been faced by the concerned person," he said.
However, Assistant Pune Municipal commissioner Rubal Agrawal defended the PHC in Phursungi and denied the possibility of any error.
“There are two operators – one for registration at entrance and one seated next to the nurse who vaccinates. Only after confirmation from the nurse, the database is updated. So there is no way such a mistake can occur.”Rubal Agrawal, Assistant Pune Municipal Commissioner told The Quint
The second phase of COVID-19 vaccination began from 1 March for those over 60 years of age and for people aged 45 and above with co-morbidities.
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