Covid-19 vaccination slots can soon be booked through third-party apps 

The government has rolled out new guidelines for CoWin— the platform being used to register for COVID-19 vaccination slots— to allow third party apps to enable registration, scheduling, and management of vaccination

Struggling to book a COVID-19 vaccination slot? Soon users will be able to book slots directly using third party apps. The government has rolled out new guidelines for CoWin— the platform being used to register for COVID-19 vaccination slots— to allow third party apps to enable registration, scheduling, and management of vaccination through their apps. Earlier, the booking was only possible through the CoWin app or Aaorgya Setu app, the third party apps were allowed to display information about the availability of slots. As per the new guidelines by the government spotted by Ivan Mehta, the government has provided an 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. The guidelines stated that the third party apps can be offered directly to citizens to find vaccination centres around them, schedule appointments, generate or COVID-19 vaccination certificates. “Co-WIN API Services can be offered to ASPs, who intend to or are providing COVID vaccination-related services and are registered for operations in India. 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,” the guidelines read.