![]() ![]() “The food supplies never come according to the data. They said they have to struggle with issues such as the unavailability of smartphones sponsored by the government, poor quality of devices when provided, unreliable internet connectivity, and the lack of regional languages on the app. Instead, the workers feel overburdened by the app. The child care workers are expected to update the app’s daily tracker regularly.įive child care workers told Rest of World that Poshan Tracker has neither eased their work nor helped provide better nourishment to the children. Rest of World reached out to officials from the Ministry of Women and Child Development and the government’s public policy think tank NITI Aayog, but did not get a response. The government has spent 1,053 crore rupees ($126 million) on the app, and its predecessor - which had received almost 36% of the funds allocated for India’s national program on child malnutrition, reported Scroll.in. “Poshan Tracker gives a 360-degree view and tracking of the Anganwadi Centre, nutrition service deliveries and complete beneficiary management for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children,” India’s women and child development minister, Smriti Irani, had said in a social media post in 2021. Since March 2021, child care workers’ pay is linked to activity recorded on the app. They must also geotag and upload children’s data such as height and weight. Child care workers like Poonam are required to record their attendance and daily activities - from providing food and health care supplements to maintaining records - on Poshan Tracker. The app is an integral part of the Indian government’s child care program, which aims to reduce the problems of stunted growth, malnutrition, and anemia among children. This was just the beginning of Poonam’s battles with Poshan Tracker, an app to monitor and track the delivery of services by India’s 1.4 million child care workers - locally called Anganwadi workers - in real time. But the smartphone was never provided, and in March this year, Poonam spent 12,000 rupees ($145) of her own money to buy one so she wouldn’t lose her job. “Initially, the government said we will be given phones after we purchased SIM cards,” she told Rest of World, requesting to be identified by a pseudonym as she feared government backlash. She was willing to move her work to the app, but did not own a smartphone. Poonam had worked at her job for 16 years at that point, and used notebooks to track her daily tasks. One day in 2021, Poonam, a government-appointed child care worker in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, received an abrupt warning: Start using the government’s newly launched Poshan Tracker app to track your daily work, or face legal action.
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