The department will implement the interactive voice response system, which would help the government in plugging the leakages in the Mid-day Meal Scheme since the IVRS envisages the school headmaster/headmistress furnishing all information/data as regards the mid-day meal served – including number of students served, the menu and the quality of the food items – to the department of education on daily basis by 12 noon, which in turn, would be immediately forwarded to the Union ministry of human resource development
PANAJI: The department of education will complete the Aadhaar enrolment of approximately 2 lakh students studying in various state schools from class I to class XII by the end of the next month, making Goa the first state in the country to have cent per cent Aadhaar enrolment.
In addition, the department will implement the interactive voice response system, which would help the government in plugging the leakages in the Mid-day Meal Scheme since the IVRS envisages the school headmaster/headmistress furnishing all information/data as regards the mid-day meal served – including number of students served, the menu and the quality of the food items – to the department of education on daily basis by 12 noon, which in turn, would be immediately forwarded to the Union ministry of human resource development.
The ministry, last month, had issued a notification, making Aadhaar number compulsory for school students for being eligible to the mid-day meals.
The notification had stated, “The use of Aadhaar as identity document for delivery of services, benefits or subsidies simplifies the government delivery process and enables beneficiaries to get their entitlements directly and in a seamless manner.”
The Union HRD ministry had given time till June 30, 2017, for those students who are yet to be Aadhaar enrolled. The cook-cum-helpers working under the Mid-day Meal Scheme will also have to furnish their Aadhaar number.
Coming out with this information, director of education G P Bhat stated that presently only 17,000 students in Goa, out of the total of 2 lakh students, that is around 8 per cent to 9 per cent of the total student population, are yet to be Aadhar enrolled.
“We have requested the Goa Electronics Limited as well as the directorate of planning, statistics and evaluation to provide us with the Aadhaar enrolment kit comprising of eye/finger scanner and web camera,” Bhat informed, stating that the existing computers in the
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respective schools would also be used for the purpose, besides training the computers teachers to conduct the enrolment.
“Under the direct benefit transfer, all students would be Aadhaar linked, and their individual bank accounts seeded with Aadhaar,” he observed.
Maintaining that this year, there would neither be any change in the mid-day meal menu nor construction of any proposed community kitchens in the schools complexes for cooking the meal, the director of education said that however 81 helpers have been approved by the government under the Mid-day Meal Scheme.
“They will disburse the mid-day meal, clean the utensils and so on,” he added, pointing out that one such helper would be provided for every 500 students or more.
Bhat said that a meeting was held on March 8 to finalise the annual work plan and budget of the education department, that witnessed deliberations about the Goa Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Mid-day Meal Scheme, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and teacher education, which in turn, have received central funds to the tune of Rs 40 crore, Rs 25 crore, Rs 13 crore and Rs 2 crore, respectively.
“Although we have got a collective fund of Rs 80 crore sanctioned by the central government, under these four heads, the state government now needs to shoulder 40 per cent share as against 60 per cent share of the Centre,” he noted, mentioning that there was however one condition from the Union HRD ministry, which is to implement the interactive voice response system for monitoring the daily implementation of the scheme.