The Telangana government has taken an important step towards digitally empowering the Anganwadi workers of the state. The state government has decided to provide new mobile phones to more than 38,000 Anganwadi workers and the purchase of phones for this has also been completed. Through these phones, workers will enter 14 types of information every day through the nutrition tracker app.
Nutrition Tracker is an important digital governance tool launched on 1 March 2021 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development of the Central Government. This app provides a 360 degree view of the activities of Anganwadi centres, service delivery of workers and beneficiaries pregnant women, lactating mothers, children of 0-6 years and adolescent girls.
Anganwadi workers will track this information in real time through the app
Through this app, Anganwadi workers can record information like weight, height, nutritional status and vaccination of children in real time. Paper registers will now be replaced by digital entries, allowing supervisors to view data immediately without having to wait for monthly reports.
24 Indian languages available in nutrition tracker app
The nutrition tracker app is available in 24 languages including Hindi and Telugu. It digitizes and automates the physical registers of Anganwadi workers thereby improving the quality of their work. The Nutrition Tracker app is already covering more than 10.12 crore beneficiaries across the country and its full implementation across all Anganwadi centers is targeted by 2026.
This step is also important in Telangana because malnutrition has been a serious problem in remote and tribal areas of the state. With the availability of new smartphones, Anganwadi teachers will be able to enter 14 types of information daily including child’s weight, mother’s health condition, supplementary nutrition distribution, home visits, vaccination status and other details directly in the app. This app works offline even in areas with low internet connectivity, the data gets uploaded later.