Important CoWIN App Update: BIG DEVELOPMENT! Register for COVID-19 vaccine slots via third party apps | Here is how

CoWIN App Update: Till now, in India, people were able to register for the COVID-19 vaccination only through the CoWIN portal, however, this is likely to change as now people will be able to register for COVID-19 vaccination and book slots through third party apps. A new set of guidelines has been issued by the government to CoWIN that are essentially aimed at allowing third parties to enable registration, scheduling, and management of vaccination through their apps.

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According to the guidelines from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), the CoWIN APIs will allow app developers the ability to register and schedule an appointment for COVID-19 vaccination and manage the facilities directly from their end. The guidelines also mentioned that the developer-side changes will take place in the master database maintained as part of the CoWIN platform. This is an update from the existing framework where the third party apps were only able to offer information on the availability of COVID-19 vaccination slots and downloading the vaccination certificates by means of their apps. 

The MoHFW provides API based access to Co-WIN for third-party software applications to provide a variety of value-added services directly to the beneficiary or enable empanelled COVID Vaccination Centres (CVC) to offer enhanced services to their users. These third party applications can be either offered directly to citizens (B2C) or offered to private CVCs (B2B) for following functionalities:

1) discover vaccination centers and related information

2) schedule appointments

3) manage vaccination workflow (in the case when such application is offered to CVCs)

4) generate/download certificates

5) generate/download certificates

It has to be noted that the CoWIN API Services can be offered to ASPs, who intend to or are providing COVID vaccination related services and are registered for operations in India as per the guidelines. Using the service, the approved organizations can avail the whitelisted data elements from Co-WIN in real-time. The ASPs can integrate the APIs with their applications to extend the quality and reach of their initiative. 

Till now, Aarogya Setu and Umang were the only apps by means of which people were able to register and book an appointment for COVID-19 vaccination while the third party apps could only show the availability of the appointment slots.