In Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah district, COVID19 vaccination certificates have been issued to 30-year-old ‘Niten Gadkari’, 33-year-old ‘Amit Sha’, 26-year-old ‘Om Birla’, and 37-year-old ‘Pushyu Goyal’. These vaccine certificates were issued by a community healthcare centre in Sarsainawar village in Takha tehsil, about 200 kilometres from the state capital Lucknow. The names on these certificates are similar to the Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Amit Shah, Piyush Goyal and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla.

The district officials have termed it a ‘conspiracy’. “These certificates are generated online. This is done to malign our image in the public eye. This is somebody’s conspiracy against us,” Bhagwan Das, chief medical officer of Etawah district, told Gaon Connection. “Someone hacked the ID [Identity document] of our incharge and has done this to malign us and the vaccination drive of the district,” he added.

“Today [December 18], a three member team has been sent to the village for investigation,” the official informed.

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The certificates were issued to people who were reportedly vaccinated with the first dose on December 12 at Sarsainawar community health centre in Etawah district. The date for the second dose has been fixed between March 5, 2022, and April 3, 2022 – after a gap of about 12 weeks and 16 weeks, respectively.

It is to be noted that the gap between the first and second dose is 12 weeks for Covishield vaccine, four weeks for Covaxin, and three weeks for Sputnik V.

In Etawah district, 236 sites — all government run — are conducting vaccination. More than 1.6 million COVID19 vaccine doses have been administered in the district so far.

Vaccine certificate for dead

Earlier in August, a Gaon Connection report revealed that COVID19 vaccine certificates were issued to two deceased inhabitants of Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh.

A certificate was issued to 68-year-old Angnu saying he had been administered the COVID19 vaccine. A similar certificate was also issued to his wife. The only problem with these certificates, issued by the district health department, was that while these doses were administered in August, Angnu had died last year on May 27, while his wife, Ramdei, passed away in March this year.

The couple were inhabitants of Hardihapurva village, Rampurmathura block, about 120 kms away from the district headquarters in Sitapur. The district administration blamed ‘Aadhaar misuse’.

In India, more than 1,370 million vaccine doses have been administered so far. Of these, about 826 million first doses and about 544 million second doses have been administered. More than half of the country’s eligible populations has been fully vaccinated.