New Delhi: The Central government on Monday informed the Supreme Court that Aadhaar card is not mandatory for registration on CoWIN portal for Covid-19 vaccination.
The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry informed the apex court that one of the nine identity documents, including passport, driving licence, PAN card, voter’s card, ration card, can be produced for vaccination, PTI reported.
Taking note of the submissions, an apex court bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Surya Kant disposed of a plea filed by Siddharthshankar Sharma.
Sharma claimed that Aadhaar card was being mandatorily insisted upon for administering Covid-19 vaccination on the CoWIN portal.
The apex court had earlier issued notice on a writ petition seeking directions to the Centre to not insist on the production of Aadhaar card as the only proof of identification for the purpose of administering Covid-19 vaccination.
Meanwhile, the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry informed that India’s Covid-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded 169.63 crore with the administration of more than 14.70 lakh doses vaccine doses in the last 24 hours.
The Health Ministry said 1,99,054 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours and the cumulative tally of recovered patients since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic is now at 4,06,60,202.
“Consequently, India’s recovery rate stands at 96.19%,” the ministry added.
The Health Ministry said India’s active caseload is presently at 11,08,938, adding the active cases constitute 2.62% of the country's total positive cases.
Stating the testing capacity across the country continues to be expanded, the Health Ministry said the last 24 hours saw a total of 11,56,363 tests being conducted.
“India has so far conducted over 74.15 crore cumulative tests,” the ministry added.
The Health Ministry also informed that testing capacity has been enhanced across the country.
“Weekly positivity rate in the country currently stands at 9.18% and the daily positivity rate is reported to be 7.25%,” the ministry added.