Like a guardian: Aadhaar to track child from birth to school

The 12-digit biometric-based unique identification or Aadhaar number will help the government keep track of every child born in India till he or she reaches school and ensure every paisa spent on state-sponsored schemes for children’s welfare makes it to the desired target.

Updated on: Apr 4, 2015, 02:27:57 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The 12-digit biometric-based unique identification or Aadhaar number will help the government keep track of every child born in India till he or she reaches school and ensure every paisa spent on state-sponsored schemes for children’s welfare makes it to the desired target.

The elaborate child-tracking system will be launched this year as part of the Narendra Modi government’s decision to disburse all benefits through Aadhaar-linked bank accounts.

Preparatory work has started already with the finance ministry directing in February that disbursement of money in all schemes from the current fiscal be done through Aadhaar-linked accounts.

The prime minister’s office has asked the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog to draw the framework to link all child development schemes as well as the immunisation drive with Aadhaar.

The linkage will start as soon as a pregnant woman visits a health centre for the first time or a ground-level health worker records her pregnancy to the authorities. “Her health card will be Aadhaar-linked and will mention the benefits she has received from the government,” said a senior official on condition of anonymity.

Once she delivers the child, the mother’s Aadhaar number will get mentioned in the birth certificate and immunisation card. This will help the authorities keep track of the child’s health and send text messages to the mother’s mobile phone if the child misses a scheduled vaccine.

It will create a digital health record of both mother and child, which can be accessed through the Aadhaar number from anywhere in the country.

An official said the tracking mechanism would help keep tabs on child welfare workers and improve efficiency in implementing schemes for toddlers.

The Centre disburses funds through half-a-dozen schemes of the women and child development and health ministries. “It will be real convergence of schemes and not a notional one as happened during the previous government,” said a senior official.

Once everything gets going, most likely by the later part of this year, it would be the nation’s first Aadhaar-based MIS system for tracking social sector spending. The government has set aside over Rs 4,50,000 crore for welfare schemes this fiscal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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