Availability of mobile services can help Jharkhand save crores of rupees generally spent on big ticket projects that do not seem viable in Jharkhand due to poor infrastructure support.
The State can ride the wave of small innovations in mobile applications and reap greater benefit compared to projects that rely heavily on prevalence of internet and computers.
The recently concluded ‘State Consultation on Innovation’ programme highlighted the potential of mobile applications developed at the Data Center of Jharkhand police in bridging the gap in the administrative set up in the State.
Among the demand driven mobile application developed by employees at the Center is a SMS-based School Monitoring System to help Block Education Officer monitor Mid-day Meal schemes. The demand for such an application was raised by the Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Dhanbad Prashant Kumar.
“Credit must to go to Dhanbad DC who wanted an application for their BEOs so that they can effectively monitor MDM schemes in schools in their area. Almost every school in Dhanbad is now registered with us and they regularly send updates to us through their registered mobile,” said Ajit Kumar, the application developer, who works for Jharkhand Police.
The mobile based application works via mobile numbers registered with the Data Center. A person dedicated for sending reports sends it via SMS which is verified by a script, developed by Ajit, and based on the conformity with the data format the MDM server is updated with latest records. So far, around 304 active schools in Dhanbad district have been registered under the system.
The effectiveness of the application in monitoring MDM has led the scientist from National Informatics Center D Nayak to project it and mobile based application systems to be the suitable replacement to projects that cost more but proportionately yield too little. Nayak incidentally heads the Data Center. “We don’t have internet infrastructure in remote areas. Even in urban areas internet connectivity is very is in bad condition. Besides mobile applications like these are better than internet based e-governance system,” maintained Nayak.
Notably, the officials of Data Center of Jharkhand police also earned another acclaim for introducing ERP in Budgeting and Budget Control. The system facilitates book keeping where a government department can enter the money it has spent in different activities. The application will help in automatic collection of budget report from all districts which thus saving time spent on data collection and its analysis for future budget. For streamlining the entire budgeting system, Arvind Kumar was awarded at the programme.