UP govt clears decks for purchase of 1,23,398 smart phones
The phones will be used by ‘anganwadi’ workers under the National Nutrition Mission programme
LUCKNOW The UP government on Tuesday cleared the decks to buy 1,23,398 smart phones, setting aside the controversy over the process of bidding initiated earlier for the purchase.
The smart phones will be used by ‘anganwadi’ workers under the National Nutrition Mission programme. Each phone is expected to cost Rs 9,440 and a sum of Rs 116.48 crore had been earmarked for the purpose.
A government order (dated July 26, 2021) titled ‘financial and administrative sanction to buy smart phones in 2021-2022 through GEM portal under Poshan Abhiyan’ has been issued in this regard by special secretary Garima Yadav cancelling the financial and administrative sanction issued vide GO number 13/2020/1763/58-1-20-2/3 (6) 13TC (dated July 24, 2020) to buy smart phones.
The order also laid down other terms and conditions for the use of funds earmarked for the purchase of smart phones.
The state government proposed to provide these phones to the ‘anganwadi’ workers to ensure real-time monitoring of provisioning supplementary nutrition to national nutrition mission beneficiaries that include pregnant and lactating mothers and children etc.
Those aware of the development said the smart phones would enable village level women and childcare workers (‘anganwadi’ workers) to feed data on the spot about the distribution of nutrition supplements to beneficiaries. The workers will use the Poshan tracker app to feed the data for real-time monitoring. “The state government has issued administrative sanction to buy 1,23,398 smart phones through the GEM portal. It has cancelled the financial and administrative sanction for bids to buy smart phones issued on July 24, 2020,” said a senior officer of National Nutrition Mission, which was launched with an objective to leverage technology for monitoring and improved service delivery to beneficiaries.
About the complaints of alleged irregularities in the bidding process initiated earlier, the officer said the department was not aware of any such complaints. “We just received oneline information from the state government informing the department about the cancellation of bids,” said the officer.
There were reports that a smart phone manufacturing company had pointed towards alleged irregularities in the tendering process that pushed the company out of the bidding process. Minister of state (independent charge) for women and child development, Swati Singh, had raised the issue of alleged irregularities and wrote to a senior officer in the women and child welfare department. Swati Singh and other senior officers of the women and child welfare department either remained unavailable or refused to comment on the issue.
The UP government had proposed to buy smart phones for ‘anganwadi’ workers under the National Nutrition Mission named as the Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition (POSHAN) Abhiyan. It was launched in 2017.