‘Web tracker’ to keep watch on construction activities in schools

Some key e-governance projects, including 'construction tracker' to track physical and financial progress of construction-related activities in schools and a tablet-based application to carry out efficient and accurate 'Patpadtalni' (school survey), have been planned by the state government to ensure transparency, along with de-centralisation and simplification of different procedures involved in the school education.

The 'construction tracker', an Internet-based application, has been developed to build a comprehensive database of all construction activities across schools in Maharashtra. It is also expected to monitor and track the funds and expenses incurred on construction activities.

"The pilot (of 'construction tracker' project) in Thane district has been successfully completed and now the application is going to be rolled out across the state," claims the Directorate of Information Technology's (DIT) status report on e-Governance in Maharashtra, 2013.

As per the report, civil work is considered an important part of the Department of School Education as about 33 per cent of the total annual budget of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme is spent on this. SSA is a comprehensive and integrated flagship programme of the Centre and the state government.

The 'construction tracker' will monitor more than 1.9 lakh construction activities across 67,000-odd schools in the state, says DIT.

A tablet-based application to carry out 'Patpadtalni', an annual survey of the school education department for counting divisions, students and teachers, is another major e-governance project planned by DIT.

"There will be provisions for photographs, GPS coordinates and GPS area mapping of the school in the application. On entering the school code, all information related to the school, including previous year's Patpadtalni data, shall be populated for the reports. It consists of around 10 data fields which an education officer would fill directly on the tablet and shall be updated on the Web server," says a DIT official.

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