Software to check nutrition standards at anganwadi centres

Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Sanjay Gandhi launched the software, which is for real-time monitoring of nutrition services at AWCs. She also launched a Rapid Reporting System to provide public access to overall data of the centres in a bid to combat malnutrition through technology.  She said the software would revolutionise the monitoring of service delivery of AWCs.

 

“Earlier anganwadi workers had to fill 11 registers manually which was a cumbersome task. There were no checks kept earlier. It is for the first time since anganwadis started that we have started collecting data and accessing it easily. This will help to draw nutrition profile of each village and address the problem of malnutrition on a permanent basis. The modernization of the system will help us to get immediate time reports from the grassroot level, done in a transparent manner,” said the minister.

The software will be deployed in two applications, Anganwadi Worker Application which will run on their smart phones and Supervisor Application that will run on tablets of the Anganwadi Supervisors, to be provided to them by the government. 

The Common Application Software, developed by Bill Gates Foundation, will provide real-time information on service delivery at all AWCs and on growth and nutrition status of children. The software will enable Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) to feed all nutrition-related data of children and their subsequent progress on a daily basis through smart phones which will help track their health in a more consistent and reliable manner. This will also save their time in data entry into multiple registers that are currently complied manually.

As a pilot project, the system has been started in Loni block of Ghaziabad district in Uttar Pradesh. The new system is expected to cover 3.68 lakh AWCs in 162 high burden districts across Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharshtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and subsequently across the country. 

“The web-enabled online digitisation will strengthen the monitoring of services delivery of AWCs in the country. It will also enable employment of timely interventions wherever and whenever required to improve the nutrition status in specific geographies,” said  Gandhi.

The minister also launched Rapid Reporting System that will provide access to state as well as Central government to data from all Anganwadis, including number of workers, children, their nutrition and health status and toilet facilities, among others. 

“It is the first time since the Anganwadi has started that we are giving all access to data. Once we have a profile of each village and we find out where the malnutrition figures are, we will be able to tackle this like we tackled Beti Bachao. It was also based on data,” Gandhi said. 

The system will provide gender-wise and category-wise number of beneficiaries of supplementary nutrition and pre-school education.

Under the Digital India Programme, Minister of Women and Child Development Maneka Sanjay Gandhi on Wednesday launched two websites – www.nipccd-earchive.wcd.nic.in and www.nipccd-elearning.wcd.nic.in of her ministry. These websites have been developed by the ministry in collaboration with the National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD), an autonomous body of the Ministry, an apex Institute for training of the ICDS/ICPS/NGOs Functionaries.