Kolkata: West Bengal state government has launched an app to make the booking of vaccination slots easier for people. Now people across the state under any municipality can enrol to get an appointment at the Covid-vaccination Centres near their homes.

It was launched by State Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Chandrima Bhattacharya this week.

The app uses WhatsApp as a communication platform. One has to leave a Whatsapp text on the number 8335999000. A return message will ask the person details like name, age, gender, locality under which municipality. The person will be allocated a slot in a centre near his or her home. They need to reach the centre as per the allotted time, show the confirmation message to take the dose.

Debjani Chatterjee from Maldah (age: 48) tried booking a slot for her second dose of Covishield today (June 18) and was successful is securing an appointment for herself on June 27. She had to share the details of her photo ID proof in order to confirm her slot.

Auhona Roy Chowdhury from Kolkata (age: 20) also tried booking a slot for her first dose today but her appointment was delayed due to unavailability of slots. She received a reply that read "1st dose Covid vaccination appointments is not available,appointment booking will start from next sunday onwards."

The return messages from the platform mention beforehand that there are currently no vaccination slots available in the districts of Hooghly, Howrah and Uttar Dinajpur. It has also been reported that there is an unavailability of Covaxin slots since the past few days and those concerned are not being able to secure an appointment for themselves.