Zilla Parishad, Nagpur's Visual Information Sharing with Advance System

VISHWAS, short for Visiting Information on Schools Handled With Attendance System, is a project developed by Zilla Parishad Nagpur to improve the performance of on-field employees of the education department of the Zilla Parishad and collect real-time information on school activity through them. It is a mobile-based target management and data verification system which monitors and verifies the targets assigned to on-field employees using GPS-enabled Android phones.

What Was Deployed

Soft Systems Consultancies Private Limited had proposed an Android application called Visual Information Sharing with Advance System. As part of the implementation of this system, they chose eight cluster heads (Kendra Pramukh) as on-field employees and one Block Education Officer as a reporting manager. Each cluster head and a manager were provided Android mobiles with the VISHWAS application installed on it.

This application is divided into two parts. The first part is called the "Employee Feedback System" that was installed on the mobile of on-field employees and the other part is called the "Manager Reporting System" that was installed on the BEO's mobile.

For each target, the system automatically generates the Google map on the BEO's mobile, showing the location of the school to be visited by the on-field employee against the actual location from where the employee has sent his feedback. In addition to this, the system automatically calculates the distance difference between the source and the target location and displays it under the map.

Challenges Faced

Managing the application to run in rural areas with poor connectivity, convincing the cluster heads (on-field employees) that this application is not an attack on their privacy but is useful for the schools visit, and training users for the use of hi-tech mobile as well as VISHWAS application are the major challenges. Plus answering questions from 136 cluster heads (on-field employees) on the mobile while they were using the application for the first time in their school visit was also a challenge.

The Result

158 showcause notices were issued by the education department on the basis of data and reports produced by VISHWAS. Details of 1400 schools were sent on-line using VISHWAS. More than 1800 reports were produced on schools in 13 talukas. 1600 school toilets have been maintained clean as a result of VISHWAS. Twelve kendra pramukhs were caught sending incorrect information from incorrect locations. Thirty eight percent students have improved their academic skills due to regular teaching from subject teachers. 180 teachers were given the first verbal warning for not providing daily notes. Twelve hundred examinations were conducted by the kendra pramukh in the visited schools. Plus, meal attendance was verified by the kendra pramukh in more than 1200 schools.

It also helped the management to keep a track on the travel expenditures of on-field employees. Key management people do not have to wait for the month-end to get the information.