Chennai, Sept 23 (BPNS)
The Tamil Nadu government has installed an app, Chief Minister Breakfast Monitoring Scheme (CMBFS) to monitor the state government’s flagship free breakfast scheme for school students.
The first phase of the scheme covering 1545 schools and 1.14 lakh students was rolled out by the Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin on September 15th, in Aathimoolam primary school, Madurai. It is to be noted that September 15 is the birth anniversary of legendary Dravidian leader and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, late C.N. Annadurai and Tamil Nadu government had rolled out the scheme on that day as a mark of respect to the late Chief Minister who was also a Dravidian ideologue.
The scheme will benefit government school students of classes I to V. The Chief Minister in his short speech during the launch of the scheme said, “ This is not a freebie and in fact it is the foremost duty and responsibility of the state government to ensure that its children are fed”. He had also said that the money spent on schemes benefitting education and health sectors is beyond critical lenses.
The state education department has introduced the breakfast scheme monitoring app to ensure that there is no foul play.
The app, CMBFS was designed and created by Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA). The state education department has directed the supervisors who are in charge of the free breakfast scheme to download this app available in google play store and to update on the scheme’s progress in the dashboard. The education department officials said that real-time data must be uploaded to the dashboard of the mobile app.
A senior officer who is part of the monitoring programme told IANS, “We commence monitoring the data on the app from 4.30 am and machinery is in place to resolve any delay in implementing the project.”
The official said that minute-by-minute monitoring of the scheme will ensure that the breakfast is served to all students in a proper and structured manner and that it is clean and hot.
For the first phase of the free breakfast scheme implemented in 1545 schools and benefiting 1.4 lakh students, the state exchequer will be spending a whopping 33.56 crore rupees which the government has already sanctioned.
It may be recalled that the mid-day meal scheme was also rolled out for the first time in Tamil Nadu with the then Chief Minister, K. Kamaraj introducing the scheme on July 17, 1956, at Tirunelveli.
The scheme was promoted by subsequent Chief Ministers including M. Karunanidhi, M.G. Ramachandran, and J. Jayalalithaa which helped the state to stall the dropping out of students from schools to an extent.
