Govt servers crash as lakhs in 18-45 age group try to register for COVID vaccination

The registration process for COVID vaccination of those aged between 18-45 years old opened up on Wednesday at 4 p.m., but servers of the CoWIN app and website, the UMANG app and the Aarogya setu app crashed due to lakhs of people trying to access them.

The CoWIN site is getting almost 27 lakh hits a minute, government sources said, as per NDTV.

Thousands of users took to social media about the servers crashing. Users also complained that they weren’t receiving the one time password (OTP) required to login to the apps.

Here are a few such posts from microblogging website Twitter from users expressing frustration with the process:

However, as per reports, the Aarogya Setu app started working after a while. Additionally, the CoWIN website worked well for users instead of the app.

Incidentally, thousands of people had stayed up till 12 a.m. on Wednesday anticipating that the registration process would open up for those in the 18-45 age band, but were disappointed as they got the message that “currently registration is allowed for citizens older than 45 years only.”

The Centre had announced that registration for vaccination between 18-45 years old would start through the CoWIN and Aarogya Setu apps at 12 a.m. on April 28. However, an update had been sent through a Telegram channel for MyGov that registrations would open at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.