Online monitoring system to track freebies for govt school students

Chennai

The move to monitor the implementation of welfare scheme comes against the backdrop of several complaints that the freebies were not reaching the actual beneficiaries.

A senior official from the School Education Department said that the Special Programmes Implementation Department of the government has developed an online intranet system that would enable the authorities concerned to regularly furnish information on the status of implementation of the various schemes.

The monitoring system would have a detailed list of beneficiaries (students), which would be matched with the school data in the Education Management Information System (EMIS). This way, it can be ensured that the welfare materials reached the right persons.

“At present, more than 15 free welfare schemes are being implemented at a cost of about Rs 2,500 crore. To start with, the online monitoring system will track important schemes like free laptops and bicycles. In future, the system will monitor all the welfare schemes,” he said.

In addition, the system would have data on procurement, which will be entered once the materials are purchased, and supply data that which will give detailed information about the distribution, the official explained.

Monitoring the progress of the schemes online would help officials track whether they are being implemented as per the plan of action, the official said, adding that it would also enable them to identify field-level constraints if any so as to plan midcourse corrections during the transit period.

Besides these functions, the system would also monitor various announcements made by the State government from time to time, and officials would be entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring their implementation, he said.

“They will then coordinate with the line departments to gather information and prepare weekly progress report of flagship schemes and also fortnightly status report on the progress of implementation of various announcements. These reports are submitted to the office of the authorities concerned,” said the official.