New Delhi, Oct 22 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the CoWin platform as India clocked administering 100 crore Covid-19 vaccines, and said it helped in ensuring that the drive was "equitable, scalable, trackable, and transparent".
In an op-ed titled "Team India-Responding to Adversity with Achievement", the Prime Minister, while lauding the achievements, also talked about the challenges faced, the the efforts that were made
He said in early 2020, when Covid-19 was rampaging across the world, it was clear to us that this pandemic will have to be eventually fought with the help of vaccines.
"We started preparing early. We constituted expert groups and started preparing a roadmap right from April 2020".
In an article which also talked about ensuring there was no "VIP culture" in the vaccination process, the Prime Minister said these efforts were complemented by the robust tech platform CoWIN.
"It ensured that the vaccine drive was equitable, scalable, trackable, and transparent. This ensured that there was no scope for favouritism or jumping the queue."
"It also ensured that a poor worker could take first dose in his village and the second dose of the same vaccine in the city where he works, after the required time interval. In addition to a real-time dashboard to boost transparency, the QR-coded certificates ensured verifiability. There are hardly any examples of such efforts not only in India but also the world," he said.
Prime Minister Modi also highlighted that till today, only a handful of countries have developed their own vaccines.

"More than 180 countries are dependent on an extremely limited pool of producers and dozens of nations are still waiting for the supply of vaccines, even as India has crossed 100 crore doses! Imagine the situation if India did not have its own vaccine," he said.
"How would have India secured enough vaccines for such a large population and how many years would that have taken? It is here that credit should be given to Indian scientists and entrepreneurs for rising to the occasion," he said.

He said Indian vaccine manufacturers, by scaling up to meet the demands of such a large population, have shown that they are second to none.
He also talked about the challenges of carrying out a vaccination drive in a country as large as India.

"It is not enough to just produce. Focus has to be on last mile delivery and seamless logistics. To understand the challenges involved, imagine the journey taken by one vial of vaccines".
The Prime Minister explained the supply chain and said from a plant in Pune or Hyderabad, the vial is sent to a hub in any of the states, from where it is transported to the district hub.

From there, it reaches a vaccination centre, which entails the deployment of thousands of trips taken by flights and trains. During this entire journey, the temperature has to be maintained in a particular range which is centrally moni-tored.
For this, over one lakh cold-chain equipment were utilized. States were given advance notice of the delivery schedule of the vaccines so that they could plan their drives better and vaccines reached them on the pre-decided days.
"This has been an unprecedented effort in the history of independent India," he said.
He also said each vaccination took just two minutes for a healthcare worker, which meant it took around 41 lakh man days or approximately 11 thousand man years of effort to reach this landmark.
India on Thursday crossed another significant milestone in its battle against the Covid-19 pandemic, as it touched 100 crore Covid vaccination figure. This includes both the first and second doses.
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