The government is arming itself with swanky android-based tablets to avoid tragedies like the one that struck Gandaman Primary School in Chhapra on July 16.

All block resource persons (BRPs) who, like other block and district officials, are tasked with visiting and inspecting government schools, will soon be provided a tablet each to ensure that they “really” inspect schools frequently and don’t lie to their higher ups.

Midday scheme director meal in Bihar, R. Laxmanan, told The Telegraph on Friday that these android-based tablets will ensure that school inspections are not faked.

“The plan is under consideration and will be implemented in the near future. As per rule, each BRP has to inspect at least 20 per cent schools in their blocks each month. With reports about many of them not inspecting the schools coming to the fore, the state education department thinks the tablet will be a good way to tackle the situation. Work on the project is on and will take some time,” a senior official told The Telegraph.

Education department sources said these tablets would be fed with a fixed format on the kind of inspections and findings to be carried out. “The tablets will have a feed-in format. Inspections will be of different kinds and will take into account the current state of the school, the number of students, teachers, frequency of classes, number of cooks, quality of food served, if schools are following set nutritional standards, the food menu et al. BRPs will inspect these points and fill in the results in the format table in their tablets. They will also take pictures of schools. Once they have filled in the details, the information will be uploaded on the midday meal scheme website (www.mdmsbihar.org). The information will be properly scanned by department officials and recorded on the website for official use,” another department official said.

Asked how the tablet will ensure true inspections, officials said the pictures would solve the problem. “The BRPs, once they have been given the tablets, will be instructed to click pictures of the school from their tablets. These will be geo-tagged and time-tagged so that senior officials know these have not been clicked before-hand. The name of the school should appear clearly in the picture and should be sent across along with the report. Through this, the department will know the reports are not being faked. More details are being discussed. The cost of this project cannot be stated at the moment,” the official said.

Even after the Gandaman tragedy, many BRPs, BEOs (block education officers) and DPOs (district programme officers) and DEOs (district education officers) have not been inspecting government schools regularly.

Many BDOs and BEOs of different districts had confessed to The Telegraph that most of the time they were stuck in meetings with senior officers. Mohammed Shabbir Hasan, the DPO (education), midday meal in Saran district, had said it was not possible for an inspection of all government schools of the district.

“It is true that inspections do not take place as they should. BRP s work at the ground level in the many blocks and can easily inspect schools in their blocks. The job has been given to them and in case of lapse of duty, they will be fined,” the official said.

The tablet plan is not going down well with the opposition and some senior leaders. “This plan is just impractical. How can one ensure that school inspections and midday meal tragedies will not happen just by giving tablets to the officials? One needs to go to the core of the midday meal scheme. The scheme is steeped in corruption and the money that comes for the students’ meal is distributed among different officials, including the BRPs. Then how can one state that tablets will solve this situation? The state government needs to look afresh and start off with continuous surprise inspections of senior officials. Only then the fear of the law will prevail and such irregularities can be curtailed,” Nand Kishore Yadav, the Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Legislative Assembly said.

Idea

Arm block resource persons with tablets so that they really inspect schools

Guarantee

Block resource persons will have to click pictures of schools with their tablets. These will be geo-tagged and time-tagged so that senior officials know these were not clicked before-hand

Other tasks

Tablets will have a feed-in format: Inspectors will need to note state of school, number of students, teachers, frequency of classes, number of cooks, quality of food served, if schools are following set nutritional standards, food menu and other details

All the information will be uploaded on midday meal scheme website www.mdmsbihar.org

Economics

No of blocks in Bihar: 534

Ground reality: Each block needs three resource persons. So, total BRPs needed: 1602. But posts are empty. At present, Bihar has 1500 BRPs

Total cost: Rs 2.5 crore