Bhubaneswar, Dec. 14: The school and mass education department has developed an SMS-based application to monitor midday meal schemes in the state's schools amid allegations of corruption and lack of proper implementation of the scheme.
The application has been developed by the Odisha National lnformatics Centre and will help to monitor the midday meal programme through SMS in real time.
In Odisha, around 46,71,231 children fall under the purview of midday meals daily when schools are open. Around 62,784 kitchens function all over the state to prepare meals for these students.
"Monitoring this gigantic scheme on a daily basis and in real time is the key to its successful implementation. After the National Food Security Act 2013 and the Odisha Midday Meal Rule 2016 came into force, it has become a necessity to monitor the programme daily to ensure uninterrupted service," said Gangadhar Sahoo, the state's nodal officer for the midday meal scheme.
"As a result, the government, thought of monitoring the programme through an application in real time after careful consideration," he added.
The app will help monitor daily midday meal consumption, iron-folic tablet consumption on a weekly basis and cook-cum-helper absentee report on a monthly basis. It will also help to prevent disruption of midday meal, iron-folic tablet consumption and release of honorarium of workers.
The system will also be able to detect under-reporting and false reporting by the school authorities. The system has assigned specified roles for functionaries - from school to state nodal office level.
This apart, the monitoring authorities can track reasons for midday meal interruption, iron folic acid tablet disruption and absence of cooks and take remedial measures on an immediate basis.
Accordingly, the headmasters of all schools have been directed to send the required information, including the correct name of the school and phone number for registration in the application.
"The school authorities will have to message the daily, weekly and monthly absentee statement data via SMS," said Sahoo.
The Cluster Resource Centre Co-ordinator (CRCC) will be responsible for preventive and remedial steps on a daily basis.
Teachers can send data through SMS from their registered mobile numbers with details about the total number of students present and students served among others.
Reasons for not being served such as "funds not available, food grains not available, fuel not available, dispute between agencies, court case, natural calamity, non-service by agencies" will also have to be mentioned.
