Lok Sabha Question No. 4855 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2022-04-01
Subject: Fake Vaccination Certificates
Ministry: HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE
Asked by: Anto  Antony, Gaurav Gogoi

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 4855 TO BE ANSWERED ON 01 st  APRIL 2022

## FAKE VACCINATION CERTIFICATES

## 4855.  SHRI ANTO ANTONY SHRI GAURAV GOGOI

Will the Minister of HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE be pleased to state:

- (a) whether  the  Government  has  noticed  any  cases  of  fraud  in  the  administration  of  COVID-19 vaccines and issuance of vaccination certificates, if so, the details thereof;
- (b) whether  the  Government  is  aware  of  cases  where  people  are  officially  registered  as  double vaccinated  before  receiving  both  doses  because  of  pressure  to  meet  targets,  if  so,  the  details thereof
- (c) whether the Government has investigated claims that vaccine certificate were issued to increase vaccination numbers, if so, the details thereof and action taken therein;
- (d) whether every vaccine team has a verifier, if so, the details thereof and the methods followed to identify those being vaccinated;
- (e) whether the Government has assessed the efficacy of the said method, if so, the details thereof; and
- (f) the measures taken by the Government to prevent such data tampering by including features and standard operating procedures in the CoWIN portal to prevent wrong data entry?

## ANSWER THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE (DR. BHARATI PRAVIN PAWAR)

(a) to (e) Operational guidelines issued to the States/UTs include the necessary steps to be followed for verification and vaccination. Necessary orientation of the vaccination teams has been done on the process of vaccination. No state has reported such instances of irregularities in the administration of COVID-19 vaccination.

Every Covid vaccination team has a verifier, who verifies the registered beneficiaries through any one of the  prescribed  Photo  Identity  Card  documents  (like  AADHAAR  Card,  Driving  License,  PAN  Card, Passport,  Pension  Passbook,  National  Population  Register  Smart  Card,  Electoral  Photo  Identity  Card (EPIC), Unique Disability Identification Card (UDID), Ration Card with Photo or Student Photo Identity card). These are standard methods of verification.

(f)  The  Standard  Operating  Procedure  and  features  that  have  been  incorporated  in  Co-WIN  to  prevent fraudulent  and/or  wrong  data  entry  at  time  of  vaccination  are  (i)  Online  or  onsite  registration  as prerequisite  for  vaccination  (ii)  Every  vaccination  team  has  a  verifier  to  establish  the  identity  of  the beneficiaries using  photo Identity card (iii) vaccination is recorded  on  Co-WIN  Portal  by  the verifier/vaccinator  only  after  verification  (iv)  for  onsite  registration  and  first  dose  vaccination  addition verification  is  done  through  OTP  sent  on  the  registered  mobile  number  (v)  There  is  an  option  to  do  a Aadhaar  based  authentication  if  Aadhaar  is  provided  (vi)  In  case  the  other  photo  identity  card  are provided the verifier/vaccinator has the option to capture the picture of the photo identity (vii) For onsite 2nd dose  the  verifier/vaccinator  can  search  the  beneficiary  from  CoWIN  database  and  Post  successful verification, the beneficiary needs to provide her/his year of birth and secret code which is available only on  the  beneficiary  dashboard  and  the  SMS  sent  to  the  beneficiary  (viii)  SMS  notifications  are  sent  to beneficiary at every stage of vaccination process (ix) grievance redressal mechanism in place for taking any corrective measure if required (x) beneficiaries have been empowered to make specific corrections in their records on CoWIN portal (xi) In case of wrong data entry beneficiary can revoke vaccination status by changing Precaution dose to fully vaccinated, from fully to partially vaccinated, and from partially to not vaccinated.

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