HYDERABAD: For over 45 days now, 44 Anganwadi centres in Mahbubnagar district (Urban and Rural and Jadcherla) are using a tablet to update the attendance of the staff and the beneficiaries, as part of a pilot project that monitors real-time benefit transfer. In the coming future, the technology platform developed by Centre for Digital Financial Inclusion (CDFI) will also be able to monitor that the benefits actually reaches beneficiaries.
The BETS (Benefit Entitlement Tracking Solution) has been developed for the transformation of Anganwadis to make the disbursement of funds in a cashless manner and addresses core issues in benefit transfer — authentication, transparency, and monitoring. “Based on the model previously implemented in Maharashtra to enable nutrition delivery at selected Anganwadis, the project has particularly benefited the teachers who would spend more time in record keeping than effectively managing their centres and helping serve women and children,” said Aikantika Das, a senior analyst leading the project.
The transition to the digital device was rapid, she says, primarily because of the teachers’ familiarity with smartphones. The pilot project for digital inclusion of Anganwadis in Mahabubnagar by launching and rolling out BETS is a collaborative effort of District of Mahbubnagar, CDFI and Aga Khan Academy, Hyderabad for enabling District in Telangana.
The supervisors too are happy with the digital shift. With each supervisors overseeing 80-90 Anganwadis, it is not be possible to monitor the activity of each centre. The app, however, shows at what time each Anganwadis opened and what time its closes along with the number of children and women associated with each centre. Previous data can also be obtained and data is continuously synced with the server.
A project officer associated with an Anganwadi centre under the pilot project said that earlier she could not monitor more than three or four centres but with the tablet, she is able to track the operations of all 16 centres under her. “There is also no scope for mismanagement of ration. The only suggestions we have is that they should add the take-home-rations (THRs, given for children between the age of six months and three years, and for pregnant women) in the digital platform,” she said.