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LUCKI{0W: Mid-dav Meal The Authority, LIP has been honowed with the goldtuophyin the national awards for eGovernance 20ll-D fbr innofor vative use oftechnology. The awardhasbeenmnfened onthe MDMAfor its unique initiative - CloudTelephonyand IVRSbapeddaily monitoring system. hrtha Sarthi Sen Sharma. director ofthe authority and his team membersSudhanshu Tfipathi, Sanjeeva Singhand RS Singhwbre presentedthe goldtrophy in the lSth national conference e.Governance on held in Bhubaneswarrecently. Lastmonth,IIPMDMA receivedthe runnersun trophy in the'Digital Socio EconomicEmpowermentlcategory in the secondIndia digital awardsceremonyat India

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Habitat Centre.The awards were organisedbylAMl Internet andMobile Associationoflndia. Lack of accurateand timelv inforrnation has always plaguedthe moniboringinformation sysbem largescale of governmentoperations.So, the MDMA has deviseda daily monitoring system(DMS), as a solutionto theseimpedirnents.saidParthasarthi Sen Sharma

"Theunique innwation envisages systematicdata a. collectionon real-time basis directly from the grassroots level.The effectiveness ofthe systemhasbeendemonstrated by its use in mid-daymeal schemein fIP wherein data pertainingto mealsin over 1,50000schoolsis received dailyj' he said.Experts believe that the wstem canbe successfirllyreplicatedin various other welfareprogrammes.

Mayawatis food tracking system for schools gets HRD nod - Hindusta...

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UTTAR PRADESH

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Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times

New Delhi, January 30, 2012

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Inspired by the way Mayawati government, the Central government has decided to replicate the Uttar Pradesh model to track mid-day meal scheme to cross-check if children get their hot meal in schools. The HRD ministry has decided to have a nation-wide short messaging service (SMS) alert system to monitor the Rs 10,000 crore mid-day meal scheme. Under the scheme, the school children till upper primary level are provided hot cooked meal once a day.

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Mayawati government in UP was the first to introduce a software based SMS system, wherein the school principal and a few parents received an automatic message the day less than 50 percent or a large number of school children were served mid-day meal. The SMS was generated on basis of information on mid-day meal feed by teacher in-charge of the scheme into an online monitoring system. The principal was required to give an explanation through SMS and parents to verify the claim. A senior HRD ministry official said the national system will be improvement of the UP model and no money will be charged from parents for sending an SMS system to the national server. A successful pilot has been implemented in Bihar and the ministry expects to cover 12 lakh schools across India by June this year. Every school will have to feed information regarding the mid-day meal served to children every day and the type of food. They will be required to provide details about the quantity of food-grains they received and the amount used. The entire information generated would be in public domain on the new mid-day meal website. It will help in curbing corruption and ensure that children get good quality food, HRD minister Kapil Sibal said, after launching the website on which the mid-day meal scheme information will be available. The UPA government has been critical of UP government over implementation of Central schemes and had detected irregularities in National Rural Health Mission and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. But, the government had no problem in adopting a UPs innovation.
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3/12/2012 6:43 PM

Mayawatis food tracking system for schools gets HRD nod - Hindusta...

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Specials/Coverage/Assembly-Election...

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Mayawati has done many good things to cheer for UP People in her full five term. Few are like as below: 1. No Gunda gardi at all, No Regional netagiri....at all 2. Recruitment process got transperent like in teacher recruitment, Police recruitment etc. No nepotism, favourism, castism or no bribe at all 3. Before 2007 UPs GDP was 4.5....Now UP's GDP is aprox 7.5/8 in line with National GDP..very good progress 4. Agricultural production was at #1...i.e in good position ...Sugar prices for farmers much higher than National 5. Infrastructure developments, Electrification improved much, Education quality improved in UP. She introduced English in Gvt Schools from Basic classes 6. Last but not least She did work for all sections of society...i mean for Sarv Jan There are many more..endless good work done by Mayawati. First realise...Be a nutral observer...then you will come to know that really Mayawati did much better then previous governments. Hope UP will continue such progress in comming years.

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Mayawati for Prime Minister post. She is a trail blazer and will introduce innovative, unique and fool proof technologies to fight, not only corruption, but every aspect of India's concern. Please, I request everyone voting in upcoming elections, to vote for her. She is GREAT. Next Prime Minister of India. Congress, BJP and others have no imagination or idea as to how they should move India forward. They are vacouos and ignorant. Rahul Gandhi only visits the poor at times of election. For the rest of his term, he is travelling to holiday spot along with Montek and other members of Congress party. Mired in miasma of their apathy and coruption, they have run away from India's poor to only pursue their own greedy agenda's. Mayawati will determindely resolve issues that India's poor are longing for.

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nice work by mayawati, congrats :)..Plz implement this system in other fields too

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3/12/2012 6:43 PM

Anika Gupta, Hindustan Times Email Author November 01, 2010 First Published: 01:29 IST(1/11/2010) Last Updated: 03:07 IST(23/11/2010)

Yes, free lunches

It's noon on a monsoon day in Chirodi, a farming village in Uttar Pradesh (UP), when principal Dilavar Hussain's phone rings. On the other end of the line, a pre-recorded voice asks him how many mid-day meals his school prepared today. He punches in the number and hangs up. The call takes 30 seconds. Since June 1, more than 100,000 government school principals receive this call every day, as part of a state technology pilot programme intended to track the government's flagship social sector programme, the Cooked Mid-Day Meals Scheme (MDM). The world's biggest school lunch programme, MDM, guarantees a hot cooked lunch to every student in a government primary school. Since it started in 2002, MDM has faced harsh criticism from scholars for having no oversight mechanism. A May 2010 report by the Planning Commission of India found that consistent monitoring of the scheme was "virtually nonexistent." Some NGOs say diversion of food and money runs as high as 25%. The new technology pilot features a programme that calls every UP school principal every day and asks how many meals the school prepared. Officials can log into a website and view the data. Although the programme can't fix all MDM's problems, officials say it has already made a difference. "Six months ago, if you had asked how many meals were being prepared, no one would have been able to tell you," says Amod Kumar, former director general of UP's Mid-Day Meals Authority. On an average, officials have found that nearly 20% of UP schools aren't preparing any meals, said sources who spoke anonymously. For Hussain's students - he describes them as the poorest of the poor - the promise of a hot meal is one of the main reasons they come to school. A PROGRAM IN NEED OF FIXING The UP government had been looking for a digital monitoring scheme for Mid-Day Meals for several years, with no luck. "We thought about SMS, we thought about toll-free SMS," says Kumar, who became directorgeneral of UP's Mid-Day Meals in December 2009. "When we visited villages, there were some issues with supply chain management and flow of funds and grains," he says. A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur (IIT-K), Kumar had earlier helped set up an e-Governance scheme that allowed rural residents to digitally track applications. A TIGHT DEADLINE IVR allows computer-generated calling software to respond to the human voice. It's widely used by restaurants, airlines and movie theatres to track timing and make reservations.

Rohit Gupta and Kumar's engineers created a special technology that could feed hundreds of phone lines into an IVR program and then into the Internet. A separate team of software engineers created a website that could display data from these online databases. "The database architecture is very unique," says Rohit Gupta, director of Technosys, the company that helped design the web site. The UP government organised a call centre to take teachers' queries, and government workers visited each of the state's 822 blocks to train principals to respond to the daily call. The workers also gathered nearly 150,000 mobile phone numbers. The pilot went live in June, two months after the contract was signed, almost lightning-fast by the standards of any government. "There was negligible resistance," says Kumar. "It was a pleasant surprise." TEACHERS MAKE SUGGESTIONS The UP government's call centre receives nearly 1,500 calls a day from teachers, many with suggestions to improve the programme. "An option that allows us to indicate the quality of the meal is necessary," says Vinita Puri, principal of Prathnik Vidyalaya Mevala Bhatti-2, also in Chirodi. Puri keeps the week's menu printed on a blackboard by her desk, so that parents know what their children are entitled to. She says she knows students who enjoy the meals so much they sometimes save some to take home and eat later. NOT YET A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS Scholars are waiting to see administrative change. "You have the number of meals being reported, but what you do with that number is also important," says Reetika Khera, an economist and activist who has studied the Mid Day Meal Scheme. "You need to back that with political will and establish a follow-up measure." Kumar says data about noncompliance goes to block presidents, who are already tightening the screws on village chiefs who abscond with funds. In future, he says, the programme can be expanded to broadcast the number of meals being prepared to every member of a village, providing multiple layers of oversight and transparency. Puri insists that the programme allows a principal a way to work around a corrupt village council or village chief. "Teaching is a government job," she says, surveying her students as they leave school at the end of the day. "This programme provides us a direct link with the head office." Re-Imagining India is a joint initiative of Hindustan Times and Mint to track and understand policy reforms that could, if successful, transform India's efforts at inclusive growth. Read previous stories at www.hindustantimes.com/reimaginingindia Copyright 2011 HT Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Centre to adopt IVRS for monitoring MDM scheme

Written by Pioneer News Service | Lucknow Monday, 24 October 2011 22:03

Taking a cue from the success in implementation of the mid-day meal (MDM) scheme in Uttar Pradesh, the Union Government has agreed to adopt the Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) as designed by the state government to monitor MDM scheme.

"The IVRS is a real hit. It has introduced transparency in distribution of MDM among students in state-run schools. Impressed by its success the Union Government is contemplating to introduce the same to monitor different schemes," a government spokesman said in a Press release issued here on Monday.

The IVRS' success has helped Uttar Pradesh to bag the first prize in monitoring of the MDM as well in the school book distribution schemes. The prize was sponsored by Department of IT, Government of India and Digital Empowerment Foundation.

To know the ground realities in distribution of mid-day meal and text books among students of state-run schools, the Uttar Pradesh government had introduced IVRS under which district magistrates and Basic Shiksha Adhikaris are informed about the progress of these two schemes through an automated SMS on a daily basis.

"Under this system principals or Shiksha Mitras get a call at a fixed time from a pre-designated number. They are asked to key in the number of students present or whether MDM was distributed in the particular day. Within few minutes the central server gets complete picture of students who had the mid-day meal on the particular day," a government spokesman said.

"This also helps in evaluating implementation of MDM. The same goes with distribution of school books. Now, DMs or commissioners know in how many schools mid-day meal was not cooked on a particular day or how many schools have not received books," he said.

The spokesman said though MDM is a Central government scheme, the IVRS project was not financed by the Union Government. "It is purely a state government's initiative," he said.

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Centre to adopt IVRS for monitoring MDM scheme

Written by Pioneer News Service | Lucknow Monday, 24 October 2011 22:03

The MDM scheme is in operation in 1,53,000 government schools in which over 2.15 crore children get nutritious food every day.

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The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Nation

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20111029/nation.htm#14

In UP, monitoring mid-day meal a phone call away

Shahira Naim/TNS Lucknow, October 28 A simple call on the cell phone of the school teacher across the 1.53 lakh primary schools in Uttar Pradesh is helping monitor the states mid-day meal programme. This innovative monitoring practice developed by the states Mid-Day Meal Authority (MDMA) has won the nBillionth Award South Asia 2011. It will now be put to use to monitor a range of other public welfare schemes in the state as well. The state-of-the-art Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) based Daily Monitoring System is an automated MIS (Management Information System). In the case of mid-day meal (MDM) it makes available on a daily basis data of children availing MDM in schools across the state. The system conceived on the basis of an interface between computers and mobile phones helps the MDMA monitor the mammoth task of tracking the programme in the states 1.53 lakh primary schools catering to 2.15 crore children. Using an out-bound dialing solution calls are placed on the cell phones of either the headmaster, teacher or assistant teacher (shiksha mitra) from a virtual number using PRI lines. Through simply pressing keys on their cell phone the teacher gives information of the exact number of students who had eaten MDM on that particular day. In case of no MDM on that particular day 0 is typed. According to Director MDM Parthasarthi Sen Sharma, the chances of the teachers giving false information are almost nil. Firstly because as they are not responsible for providing the MDM they stand to gain nothing by feeding misleading data. Secondly, the information is randomly cross checked with other teachers and the fear of the information provided being counter-checked works at a deterrent, he said. To make the system foolproof a representative of the School Management Committee would also be included in the exercise in the near future, informed Sen Sharma. The data is then fed into a centralised server which immediately compiles it to provide information of the exact number of students who had eaten MDM on that particular day in a certain district or division and those schools who did not supply free meals. The information is available online to all key decision makers in the district and division. The recipient of the mBillionth Award South Asia 2011 this project provides schoolwise information access on real time basis. The mBillionth Award given jointly by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and Digital Empowerment Foundation is a dedicated platform to explore the latent potential of mobile and telecom sector across eight countries in South Asia. It is designed as an annual South Asias leading mobile and telecom award platform leading to larger regional Mobile Congress in media and policy advocacy. Transmission of real time data in this manner leaves no scope for data manipulation or distortion and availability of exception reports improves efficacy and transparency of the system. Recently the IVRS system was put to use by the Department of Primary Education to track the distribution of free text books to students under the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan.

1 of 2

11/12/2011 11:58 AM

The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Nation

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20111029/nation.htm#14

2 of 2

11/12/2011 11:58 AM

Monitoring Mid-day Meal Scheme through Cloud Telephony - Amod Kumar http://www.egovonline.net/interview/interview-details.asp?interviewi...

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Monitoring Mid-day Meal Scheme through Cloud Telephony

Name: Amod Kumar Publish Date: 01 February 2011 Designation & Organisation: Amod Kumar Location:

Amod Kumar Project Director - MNH, IntraHealth Amod Kumar, an Indian Administrative Services officer of the 1995 . He has held several positions at UP government, including Special Secretary, Basic Education & Director Mid-day-Meal, Special Secretary, Revenue, Special Secretary, I.T. (Information Technology). On a few years leave, currently, he is working on the capacity of Project Director, Maternal and Newborn Health Project -Manthan Project-IntraHealth. Pratap Vikram Singh finds out details of the project. Can you throw light on the ICT systems deployed for monitoring of mid-day meal scheme in UP, while your association with the State Mid-Day Meal Authority? During my association with the mid-day meal authority, we developed a system to monitor the mid day meal scheme with the help of cloud telephony. For its monitoring in all the 1.5 lakh schools in the state of Uttar Pradesh, the department gives IVRS calls to all the teachers through which the teachers are asked for the number of students who took meals on that particular day. Almost1800 calls are made parallely. By evening the department gets data for all the schools. Initially, the teachers are informed that the call is being made on behalf of the mid-day meal authority. It asks the teacher to punch in the number of students who were served the meal that day. If the teacher punches in zero, he is given four reasons and told to punch in the appropriate number. The reasons are: 1.Cook was absent; 2. Non availability of raw material for cooking; 3. Transportation problems; and 4. Other reason. The responses are simultaneously recorded on the website of the mid-day meal authority. The BSAs can go to website, choose respective blocks/district and check the daily meal reports. All this is done in Hindi language. Now, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development is deliberating on scaling up the monitoring project across all states and UTs. Could you please elaborate on the work being done in the health sector in the state of Uttar Pradesh by IntraHealth? Manthan Project is a $4 million initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It aims to improve the health of mothers and newborns in northern India. Among other Indian states, Uttar Pradesh has the highest percentage of maternal and neonatal deaths in India. With a duration of four-years, this project will work with the Uttar Pradesh state government to identify proven, effective mother and neonatal health (MNH) interventions, advocate at district, state, and national levels to promote the adoption and scale-up of these interventions, and expand health care services to more mothers and newborns. We see ICT as a vital tool for efficient delivery of health care services. Although leveraging ICT is still at a conceptual stage, we would be using ICT in three four ways. To reach to the ultimate client through SMS, education on remedies and behavioural change. Direct IVRS calls giving reminders about the precautions and timely intake of medicines To educate and remind the Asha workers (the health care workers in the state) through the use of multimedia-smart phones, which is now available at a much cheaper price. We can store a video on educating the workers and aiding them in better counseling. Better monitoring through generation of management information systems (MIS) reports. Through ICT, we can gather, de-duplicate and analyse the data in a better fashion, with an ultimate objective of use of data in planning. Fortunately, because of RSBY, one of the government's flagship programmes, we have the base line data.

2 of 3

11/10/2011 9:40 AM

Monitoring Mid-day Meal Scheme through Cloud Telephony - Amod Kumar http://www.egovonline.net/interview/interview-details.asp?interviewi...

Submitted By Devendra SIngh, Thursday, August 11, 2011 can i get the email id of mr. amod kumar.... Read More Submitted By Mohammad Waheed, Thursday, February 24, 2011 First of all congratulation for MrA.Kumar new assignment.We have seen in SItaurHow well worked on "Lokvani", Mid day meal is better in Bihar than UP because comitments to implements.One can visit village of Bihar & see progre... Read More

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11/10/2011 9:40 AM

http://www.livemint.com/2011/07/25000140/Innovative-ideas-take-flight-o.html