The Government of India's contact tracing app Aarogya Setu has announced a new feature that will now show the vaccinated status for users who have received the jab with 'blue ticks and blue shield'.
The app was initially launched by the Indian government as a way to track infected people and to check if a user is in a high-risk area.
Sources from the ministry told The Quint on condition of anonymity that the new feature will allow fully vaccinated people to travel across the country by simply displaying the status on the app.
How to Update Your Vaccination Status?
Open the Aarogya Setu app.
Tap the ‘Update your vaccination status’ option.
Log in to the CoWIN portal by using your mobile number verified by an OTP.
Select your name if you have added more than one person on the CoWIN platform.
Now, your vaccination status will be updated.
One Pass to Travel
Blue Shield appears for fully vaccinated individuals.
(Photo Courtesy: The Quint)
A top official from the ministry informed The Quint that the blue shield on the Aarogya Setu app will serve as a pass to travel within the country.
"In the near future, if you plan to go to a public place, or for that matter you plan to travel to another state, 'blue shield' on Aarogya Setu will serve as an 'all-in-one pass'. This will allow you to freely move through the country,"a source told The Quint on condition of anonymity.
The new feature will allow the government officials to distinguish between people who have got vaccinated and the ones who haven’t.
In addition to that, there are chances that the blue tick system might introduce information that will prove helpful for vaccinated people.
However, users will get both ticks only after receiving both doses of the said vaccine.
Individuals who have received only one dose will be designated ‘Partially Vaccinated’ and have a single tick.
Exclusionary Feature?
While the developers at Aarogya Setu have launched the new feature to encourage more people to get vaccinated, they did not specify whether using the app as a pass will be made mandatory to travel across India.
Nearly 90 crore Indians do not have access to smartphones in India yet, and using the app as a pass is disregards the digital divide.
In addition to that, an acute shortage of vaccines across the country only indicates very few people will be able to travel across states.
According to Our world in Data, only 4.31 crore Indians have now been fully vaccinated so far, which means only 3.2 percent of the country's population have got both the doses of vaccines as of Monday, 1 July.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)