Uttara Kannada dist to ensure mid-day meals quality using SMS feedback from parents

Karwar: The Uttara Kannada district administration has come out with an innovative SMS method to help parents give their feedback on the mid-day meals served to their children at the government schools in Karnataka. Parents can now register their feedbacks and complaints about the meals served to their children through a new SMS system in a set format, enabled by the district administration.

There have been many instances where complaints were raised about the inconsistent quality and irregularity of food supply. However, parents were finding it hard to bring it to the attention of the concerned district-level officials as they have to travel to the district headquarters. In a district like Uttara Kannada with 12 Taluks, traveling to the district headquarters is a Herculean task. Also, many villagers have no idea who should be contacted.

The parents should start the message with KA MDM. They should send messages like KA MDM 01 (food not served), KA MDM 02 (bad), KA MDM 03 (medium), or KA MDM 04 (good). The message has to be sent to 166.

“The sender will get a confirmation message. As we have correspondence phone numbers of every student in our database, we will know the corresponding parent and school,” Uttara Kannada Zilla Panchayat CEO Priyanga M told Deccan Chronicle.

The concerned Akshara Dasoha (Mid-Day meals) officer has to go to the school within two days. The officer has to have lunch in that school, click the photo, and send the checklist along with the signature of the HM and School Development and Management Committee (SDMC) member.

“The response is very good. We have received about 500 reactions till now of which about ¾ stated that the quality of food is good. The remaining ¼ are about bad or average. Necessary steps have been taken and problems solved,” she said.