CoWIN Data Erroneous, State Vaccine Wastage Below 4.63%, says Jharkhand’s Nodal Officer

Ranchi: At loggerheads with the Centre over vaccine wastage data, the Jharkhand government has shot off a letter to the Union government seeking rectification of wastage figures, saying CoWIN portal till May 27 erroneously showed state's wastage data at "38.45 per cent", a top official said on Friday.

The state sent the letter on Thursday night to set the record right close on the heels of Chief Minister Hemant Soren trashing the Centre's vaccine wastage data for Jharkhand.

"If wastage figures are rectified on the basis of data attached with the letter sent by us to the Centre, the wastage figure will come below 4.63%," A Dodde, state's nodal office for vaccination told PTI.

The Union Health Ministry in a statement on May 25 had said despite urging states repeatedly to keep vaccine wastage below 1%, many states such as Jharkhand (37.3%) were reporting much higher wastage than the national average (6.3%).

Jharkhand had contested, saying it is wrong to project vaccine wastage proportion is as high as 37.3% in the state whereas the fact remained that it is much below the national average and currently stands at 4.63% .

Chief minister Soren had lashed out at the Centre, saying how can one imagine that Jharkhand will allow its "suraksha kavach" (protective gear) to go waste?

CoWIN portal developed by the Central government for the vaccination programme displays the vaccine wastage data for Jharkhand at 38.45% till May 27.

A review at state-level assessed that human errors and typos by certain vaccinators in the course of data entry on CoWIN portal combined with certain glitches during wastage calculation on CoWIN software resulted in portrayal of higher wastage than actual, the letter mentioned.

"Whereas states have been urged repeatedly to keep vaccine wastage below 1 per cent, many states such as

Jharkhand (37.3 pc), Chhattisgarh (30.2 pc), Tamil Nadu (15.5 pc), Jammu and Kashmir (10.8 pc), Madhya Pradesh (10.7 pc) are reporting much higher wastage than the national average (6.3 pc)," the Union health ministry had said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, retweeting his party Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's (JMM) tweet, Soren said only 48 lakh vaccine jabs have been made available to the state against 3.25 crore eligible population while Gujarat could get 1.62 crore jabs so far for 6.2 crore population.

Chhattisgarh too has rejected the Centre's claim about high vaccine wastage claiming wastage of COVID-19 shots below one per cent in the state.

The union government created CoWIN portal and said all immunisations will be part of the National Vaccination Programme and it will be captured on CoWIN platform along with stocks and price per vaccination applicable in all inoculation centres.

Soren has slammed the Centre for "launching vaccination drive without preparedness".

On Thursday, he said the state was facing an acute shortage of vaccines with jabs for 18-44 age group almost over and hardly two to three days vaccines left for the people above the age of 45 years.

Accusing the Centre of "no transparency in vaccine allocation", he said under the circumstance he was left with no other option than to appeal to the companies operating in the state to come forward for vaccination of communities in their areas.

"We are facing acute shortages of vaccines. The  vaccine stock for the 18-44 age group is almost over and there is hardly two to three days stock for people above 45 years. We have raised the demand for vaccines but there is no clarity...There is no transparency in vaccine allocation," Soren had said.

Earlier, opposition BJP had attacked the JMM-Congress-RJD coalition government and sought to know as who is responsible for such a “high wastage” of vaccine in the state.

Asserting how can a state allow about 18 lakh of doses go waste, Soren had said it was explained to the Centre that poor connectivity in forest areas and lack of network issues were behind slow updation of data.

"However, the Centre seems hell-bent to project things in a poor light which is causing problem to poor states like Jharkhand. This is why the state had gone to the Supreme Court for allowing its platform for vaccination," Soren had said.

Officials had said total vaccines supplied to all districts was 48.63 lakh while total vaccines utilised was 40.12 lakh and the wastage percentage comes to 4.63 per cent. The state had said it had 6.56 lakh doses of vaccines available with it.

Fearing exclusion of a large chunk of the tribal people in the ongoing vaccination drive against COVID-19 due to non-availability of smartphones among many of them and access to internet in remote areas, the Jharkhand government had earlier filed a plea with the Supreme Court for directions to use its own "more user-friendly" JHAR-WIN app for registration.