On CoWIN, Supreme Court flags digital divide
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The court docket quoted from a National Statistics Office survey of 2018 which stated that round 4 per cent of the agricultural households and 23% of the city households possessed a pc
Taking a dig on the Centre’s argument that the poor and marginalised can lean on mates to register on-line for vaccination, the Supreme Court has stated even the digitally literate are discovering it arduous to get vaccine slots on CoWIN.
“A vaccination policy exclusively relying on a digital portal for vaccinating a significant population of this country between the ages of 18-44 would be unable to meet its target of universal immunisation owing to such a digital divide. It is the marginalised sections of the society who would bear the brunt of this accessibility barrier. This could have serious implications on the fundamental right to equality and the right to health of persons within the above age group,” a Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud stated in an order launched on Wednesday.
The court docket quoted from a National Statistics Office survey of 2018 which stated that round 4 per cent of the agricultural households and 23% of the city households possessed a pc. A Telecom Regulatory Authority of India report exhibits the wi-fi tele density in rural areas is 57.13% as in comparison with 155.49% in city areas as on March 31, 2019. The report said that: “this reflects the rural-urban divide in terms of telecom services’ penetration”.
The Bench requested whether or not the Centre had considered conducting a “disability audit” for the CoWIN web site and different IT utility like Aarogya Setu to make sure that they’re accessible to individuals with disabilities.
“It has been brought to our notice that the CoWIN platform is not accessible to persons with visual disabilities. The website suffers from certain accessibility barriers,” the court docket famous.
These roadblocks embody non-availability of audio captcha; the seven filters, which inter alia, embody age group, title of vaccine and whether or not the vaccine is paid or free, are usually not designed accessibly; keyboard assist for navigating the web site is absent.
“Adequate time should be given to disabled users to schedule their appointment without the possibility of being automatically logged off,” the court docket urged.
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