Paytm, MakeMyTrip, Infosys offer to help India with COVID vaccine bookings

MakeMyTrip

11/06/2021 24:30

(Repeats story published earlier. No change to text.)
    By Uday Sampath Kumar and Aditya Kalra
    BENGALURU, June 10 (Reuters) - Paytm, Infosys and MakeMyTrip
are among companies seeking approval in India to provide online
COVID-19 vaccine bookings, the head of the government's tech
platform said, as the country tries to make it easier for its
huge population to book shots.
    The government relaxed rules last month to potentially allow
third-party apps to offer vaccine bookings and has taken back
control of procurement from states following delays and
shortages. It also faced initial problems with its own vaccine
booking platform.
    Around 15 state agencies and private companies, which also
include Indian healthcare giants Apollo  APLH.NS  and Max, and
online pharmacy 1mg, have asked to be allowed to offer vaccine
bookings, R.S. Sharma, head of the government's panel managing
the CoWIN vaccination registration platform, told Reuters.
    Softbank-backed digital payments app Paytm has more than 100
million monthly active users and MakeMyTrip  MMYT.O  has 12
million. Their popularity is seen providing more options to
Indians looking to book their COVID-19 shots, particularly if
they are struggling with an unfamiliar government platform.
    "It will work in favour of the country, the union of all the
entities is better than just one individual platform," Sharma
said.
    MakeMyTrip CEO Rajesh Magow said the company wanted to help
people book their vaccination slots. 1mg said it was waiting for
government approvals. Apollo declined to comment, while Paytm,
Infosys  INFY.NS  and Max did not respond to Reuters queries.
    Only 3.5% of India's 1.3 billion population has been fully
immunised against COVID-19 and health officials say the pace
will have to ramp up to avoid further deadly surges of the
virus, like the one that swept the country in the spring. 
    While much will depend on a pick up in scarce vaccine
supplies, experts say more booking options should help. Several
software developers have already been using publicly available
coding for the CoWIN platform to create tools that send Telegram
alerts to help people book slots.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2MS1A1
     "Right now, even if you find a slot using alerts, you have
to still go to the government website and follow many steps.
Companies will be able to give a better user experience compared
to CoWIN," said Berty Thomas, a software developer who had
designed Telegram alerts for notifying people about slots.
    Paytm too has enabled a notification feature on its app.
    Sharma said vaccine supplies should improve going forward 
and praised the CoWIN platform, saying at least three African
nations - Zambia, Nigeria and Malawi - had enquired about using
it for their own vaccination drives. 
    "We will give them the portal free of cost and they can
customize. This is highly scalable," said Sharma.  

 (Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru and Aditya Kalra in 
New Delhi
Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Mark Potter)
 ((UdaySampath.Kumar@thomsonreuters.com; within U.S.+1 646 223
8780; Twitter: https://twitter.com/sampath_uday  ;))