UP using cellphones to keep tab on mid-day meal scheme

For the past six months, around noon every day, a cellphone rings in 1.5 lakh government schools across Uttar Pradesh. On the other end of the line is a computer-generated voice asking if the mid-day meal in the school has been cooked or not, and how many children have been served.

Now, make that lakhs of schools, across the country. Supercaller, Uttar Pradesh?s innovative scheme to monitor the mid-day meal scheme, has caught the attention of the Union Human Resource Development Ministry, which has asked the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to develop a software so that the system can be replicated in all states.

The information gathered through the interactive voice response system by the computer is automatically recorded on the website of the UP Mid-day Meal Authority. If the meal has not been served in a school, officials can call up, find out the reason, and take corrective action.

If the HRD is impressed, so are other states. Andhra Pradesh has contacted Gurgaon-based Knowlarity Communications, which developed the system for UP, directly and asked them to redesign it according to their needs. The Supercaller system is based on a technology called ?cloud telephony?. ?It has helped us track the meal each day, and eliminate problems,? says Santosh Rai, Additional Director of UP?s Mid-day Meal Authority.

Last month, a meeting of the national steering-cum-monitoring committee of mid-day meal, which functions under the HRD Ministry, approved the use of this technology across the country.

Says Gaya Prasad, Director of Mid-Day Meal in the Ministry of Human Resource Development: ?This is the first time that anyone has used technology to monitor mid-day meal. Cloud telephony is a new technology and UP has successfully experimented with it to mid-day meals on a daily basis through an IVRS-based telephone call to teachers. Sometime ago, when UP gave its presentation at one of the meetings, it was not only appreciated but other states were asked to adopt it as well.?

Earlier, if the gram pradhans responsible for running the scheme stopped distribution of meals at their whim, or there were other problems in the supplies reaching a school, the administration would get to know weeks later, usually from newspaper reports.

The Centre allots 2 per cent of the mid-day meal budget for monitoring, and Prasad said UP had been told they could take the scheme further with additional assistance from the Centre.

C H Pullaiah, the Andhra Additional Director of mid-day meal, who attended the Delhi meeting, says: ?The UP project impressed us. We have contacted the same organisation to prepare a proposal for us. We plan to launch it in selected districts by the end of this month.?

Pallav Pandey, co-founder and chief operating officer of Knowlarity Communication Ltd, said Orissa, Uttarakhand and West Bengal had also shown interest. While the basic technology in different states would remain the same, Pandey said, changes will be in terms of the questions asked and the pattern in which data is recorded.