Indian government earlier in the year in January launched the world's largest vaccination drive to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, from day one, the programme has been constrained with glitches with regard to booking the vaccine slot on the state-run Co-WIN website. So far, 20 crore people have been vaccinated out of 138 crore population.
Several crores of people young and old have tried logging in to the Co-WIN website for several hours to book the slot, but not able to find one. Those working from home are finding it tough can't focus on work and also keep checking Co-WIN website refreshing the page.
In a bid to help more people get the vaccine, several technology companies such as Paytm, Jio, Airtel, among other introduced tools in their respective mobile apps to find the nearest vaccine centres. Also, several groups of well-intentioned techies launched bots on Telegram, WhatsApp, and other messenger apps to deliver similar services.
Now, a freelance developer Sushrut Kasture has come up with a novel Chrome extension- 'Cowin Booking', which greatly reduces the workload.
Once you fill the pop-up auto-fill application form, it will automatically book the vaccine slot in the nearest public health centre.
Kasture also notes that personal information (phone number) asked during registration is completely safe. All information typed in the auto-fill application will not be saved nor sold to any third-party clients.
"This extension (Cowin Booking) is not for commercial use. A lot of similar scripts are run by programmers to ensure quick slot booking. To avoid this privilege bias, I have developed this easy, user-friendly extension," said Sushrut Kasture's on his GitHub account.
" The extension (Cowin Booking) does not collect or store user's personal information in any form. As the extension is OSS (Open Source Software), this fact can be verified. The extension (Cowin Booking) does not directly use any of the Co-WIN APIs. It just speeds up the vaccine slot booking process by autofilling the possible inputs and simulating clicks automatically on different buttons," reads the Terms of Use page of the Cowin Booking Github website.
Here's how to install and fill the Cowin Booking extension's form:
Step 1: Go to Chrome Web Store >> type Cowin Booking >> install the extension
Step 2: Then go to www.Cowin.gov.in website >> Signup for vaccination >> type the mobile number >> enter OTP >> and get yourself registered
Step 3: On the same page, you will see the red-hued on-screen button 'Edit Auto Fill Inputs' and tap on it
Step 4: Follow the procedure as mentioned- Type-in mobile number, state, district, Pincode, time slot preference, refresh interval (more than 20 seconds is preferred),
Step 5: Users can either specify government-run public health centre name (you can also keep it empty, the bot can find the nearest centre as per the pin code), select the number of slots, skip days (mention one day, it will look for slots from the next day)
Step 6: Select Filters - 18+ or 45+ or Covishield or Covaxin or Sputnik or Free or Paid
Step 7: Select 'Attempt to book automatically >> Choose Enable Auto Refresh >> Select 'Confirm booking automatically on Captcha page'.
In our testing, the Cowin Booking extension was able to get us the vaccine slot on a preferred day (June 4) in a few seconds.
If any of you have tried the Cowin Booking extension on Chrome browser, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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