In the ongoing battle against malnutrition in India, the Poshan Tracker has emerged as a revolutionary tool. This editorial analysis explores its efficacy in real-time monitoring of nutritional status among women and children, its impact on the Anganwadi ecosystem, and its potential to catalyse change at the grassroots level.
Poshan Tracker: An Overview
- Poshan Tracker was developed to increase transparency and accountability in the delivery of nutrition services.
- This system can closely monitor progress in reducing malnutrition in India due to its vast scale of operations.
Key Data
- Poshan Tracker dashboard shows that the height and weight of 72 million children under five years are currently monitored.
- This is significant as it represents real-time tracking of over 50% of children in India (compared to a total of 113 million children under five years as per UN Data Projections).
- 94% of these beneficiaries have been authenticated using Aadhar.
Functionality
Besides collecting beneficiary data, the Poshan Tracker dashboard provides national, state, and district-level data divided into three categories.
- Anganwadi Infrastructure: Data includes the number of Anganwadi centres built, those with functional toilets or drinking water, and those open for service delivery.
- Beneficiary Tracking: Tracks the number of beneficiaries who received raw rations and hot cooked meals.
- Nutritional Outcomes Monitoring: Monitors nutritional outcomes.
Purpose
- Poshan Tracker serves as a real-time feedback system for front-line functionaries.
- With this tracker, early identification of children at risk of malnutrition is possible, allowing for targeted help for those facing acute malnutrition.
- It also helps monitor the effective delivery of ICDS services.
Speed And Efficiency Of Poshan Tracker
- It offers a faster and more efficient platform than paper-based reporting.
- It transmits data in real-time to local, state, and national offices, bypassing the need for physical transportation of registers.
- It enables quicker retrieval of child health information compared to paper-based methods, freeing up more time for nutritional promotion activities.
- The Poshan Tracker app can automatically calculate if a child is stunted, wasted, or underweight based on WHO growth charts, reducing manual calculation errors.
- The Poshan Tracker provides detailed, beneficiary-specific data, addressing variability in malnutrition rates obtained from household surveys.
- This data is directly observed on the ground and not modelled, making it a reliable source for decision-makers.
- Poshan Tracker offers time efficiency over paper-based reporting by eliminating the need for data transportation, entry, aggregation, and analysis.
- The app allows instantaneous data transmission to local, state, and national offices.
- In terms of care, information about a child is easier and quicker to retrieve from the Poshan Tracker app than from paper registers, freeing up time for nutritional promotion activities.
Way Forward
- Poshan Tracker is a revolutionary initiative for monitoring nutritional status on a large scale.
- Data should not be the end goal, but a tool for action.
- When malnutrition is detected, there must be enough resources to provide essential services.
- The data from the app can help achieve the objectives of Poshan 2.0 by catalysing actionable outcomes at the grassroots level.
- Anganwadi workers are already overwhelmed, so the Poshan Tracker needs to be user-friendly.
- Regular updates based on user feedback are essential.
- Ongoing skill-building and technical support are required to ensure the system’s sustainability.
Note: This editorial analysis is based on the article “App for mother and child welfare” (The Indian Express, November 6, 2023)