Bhubaneswar, May 7: A large number of people in Odisha are in the dark about the procedures for slot booking and faceonline hurdle to vaccination.

To book a slot, users of the CoWIN website need to log in with their mobile phone number and get a one-time password, before beginning their hunt for vaccine centres via an area code or district name.

Online hurdle to vaccination

Many daily labourers are in doubt whether they can ever get their first dose of Covid vaccine. They are ignorant about the use of the Internet, which is required for mandatory online registration on the government’s CoWIN portal and subsequent slot booking in the vaccination centres.

Like them, a large number of people in the state are in the dark about the procedures for online registration and slot booking.

One vegetable vendor said he had directly approached a vaccination centre on Tuesday with the hope of getting his first dose. “I did not know that the vaccine is being given to those people who did online registration and slot booking. I stood in a long queue for two hours assuming that the vaccine is for all. When my turn came after nearly 1 hour, the authorities asked me to show my registration number. I did not have any and was denied the vaccine,” Swain said.

Situation is no better for people above 45 years in different districts.  People have urged the government to facilitate their online booking for the vaccine.

Appeal for offline registration facility

The state government said as of now the Centre has not allowed offline registration to avail the vaccine. “We will explore the feasibility from our side and try to facilitate the online registration of people who do not know the procedures,” a senior health department officer said.