Knowledge
New SMS-based system for monitoring midday meals to be launched soon
The government is launching an SMS based tracking system to track beneficiaries of the Midday Meal scheme in Uttarakhand. The system will provide real time information to the education department along with the State and Central government.
Much has been reported over the past few days about the increasing complaints regarding the Midday meals served in government schools across the nation. That the government wants the flagship scheme to be a success is evident from the prompt action taken on most occasions and this time the government is proactively taking a step towards arresting complaints at the root and bringing in more accountability in the system.
Uttarakhand is soon going to get an SMS-based daily monitoring system. This initiative will allow a daily identification and close monitoring of all the beneficiaries of the midday meal scheme. This information in turn would be made available to the school education department through SMS. Over 19,000 government schools in the state would benefit from daily monitoring.
School education, secretary, D Senthil Pandiyan said, "The Government of India has instructed the state to initiate automated system for monitoring midday meals such that real time information on a daily basis can be ascertained. We are ensuring that SMS-based daily monitoring of midday meals will be initiated soon in Uttarakhand. Monitoring the scheme on a daily basis will help in addressing the loopholes and the information provided will be cross-checked to maintain right records," he added.
The initiative has already been appreciated from some quarters. Jai Sharma, a volunteer from Doon-based SPECS, an NGO which recently raised the issue of adulterated food being sold on Char Dham yatra routes, said, "It is good that on a daily basis, midday meals in government schools will be monitored. There definitely needs to be a check mechanism on this. However, it will be better and more beneficial if gradually this monitoring extends to even checking adulteration level of the food served so that kids eat only nutritious meals."
It’s noteworthy that the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has already implemented in the neighbouring state of Himachal Pradesh, an SMS-based automated system for monitoring of midday meal scheme whereby teachers of every single school in the state would be able to send out information every day through SMS about the midday meal data to a particular number. The system makes available all this information to the education department on real time basis.
"This will ensure that we know the daily attendance of students, the amount of money and food available in each school for proper implementation of the scheme, the state of leave or shut down of schools or any other pressing issue concerned with midday meals on a daily basis, so that these can be addressed," said Pandiyan
To bring in more accountability, the phone numbers of principals, headmasters and midday meal scheme ‘in-charge’ of every single government school in the state would also be added to the scheme database. It is also proposed to link all schools with GIS mapping, so that those schools which are not providing the needed information can be easily identified.
Once implemented, this scheme would be able to share with the school education department along with the State and Central government data on the number of students in varied schools who had midday meals in different regions of the state.