The National COVID-19 Vaccination Programme of the Union Health Ministry received the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration 2022 under the innovation category. 

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan received the award from the  Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 21, 2023 at a function organized on the occasion of 16th Civil Services in Delhi.

The planning of the Vaccination programme started well in advance on four pillars which included structured governance mechanism, ramping up of production, logistics and supply management and implementation strategies for effective and decentralized vaccine administration involving both public & private health facilities.  

The ministry said that a robust monitoring system based on consultative approach was established through the State Steering Committee, State Task Force, District Task Force, Block/Urban Task Force with a two-way feedback mechanism to ensure swift mid-course corrective measures.

The ministry further added that the operational guidelines detailing about the technicalities of COVID vaccination and communication strategy addressing vaccine hesitancy and eagerness on COVID-19 Vaccination were prepared and shared with all states and UTs.

Following scientific prioritization, the programme initially began with vaccinating 1.04 crore Health Care Workers, followed by Front Line Workers and the vulnerable population aged 60 years and above, increasing the cohort to nearly 30 crores. It was further expanded in a phased manner to cover the population cohort of 106. 02 crore comprising those aged 12 years and above, comparable to the population size of several countries together.

Since the programme was initiated on 16th January 2021, it has completed 825 days till date.

Capacity building played a crucial role in ensuring safe delivery of vaccines. Cascaded training of all stakeholders was conducted on a humongous scale and in record time even during COVID surges through a combination of virtual (for the first time till the district level) as well as classroom trainings (sub-district level) and the quality of trainings was monitored using certain pre-fixed key indicators.

Nearly 75,000 Programme Officers/Medical Officers, 7,30,000 Health Workers and 1,60,000 additional Frontline Workers were oriented on various aspects of vaccination programme including those in private sector and health services under other organizations. Approximately 2.64 lakh vaccinators and 4.76 lakh other vaccination team members were trained on the key components of COVID vaccination. More than 1,00,000 users trained on using Co-WIN platform in 700+ districts.

Development of Co-WIN (Winning over COVID) platform for facilitating a smooth vaccination roll-out was critical in the success of the programme. The IT platform was based on the 5 core principles: inclusivity, accessibility, equity, transparency and scalability. It enabled real time monitoring of status of vaccination drive, vaccine availability and utilization. It facilitated the beneficiaries in self-registration, advance booking of vaccination appointments and availability of QR based individual digital certificates.

The innovative digital platform has been modified and customized with the evolving guidelines from time to time. It was ensured that the process of registration and vaccination remains simple, transparent and hassle-free.