PM-Family Care Tracker will ensure no child is left out of welfare schemes: HM Amit Shah

Gandhinagar, June 28 (IANS) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday launched the pilot project of the PM Family Care Tracker (PM-FCT) in Gujarat, describing it as an integrated digital platform that would monitor the health, nutrition, education and welfare of children from pregnancy until the age of 16 years.

Launching the initiative in the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, HM Shah said the platform was the next step in strengthening welfare delivery for poor families.

“Today, PM-FCT is, in a way, the next step in that journey. The PM Healthcare Tracker is concerned with ensuring that the foundations of life for the country’s 70 crore poor children are laid on a healthy footing,” he said.

He said the system would track every stage of a child’s development and generate alerts whenever intervention was required.

“With this single Family Care Tracker, if any child misses a dose of the polio vaccine, an alert will immediately be generated for the taluka and district health officers, and the information will also reach the concerned MLA and MP,” he noted.

HM Shah said the platform would also monitor school attendance. “If a girl attends school until Class 3 but does not enrol in Class 4, her name will immediately be flagged. Women from parent committees and the school principal will visit her home, and if she still does not return to school, the matter will receive attention at the taluka, district, MLA and MP levels,” he asserted.

He added that underweight children and those suffering from growth deficiencies would also be identified through the system.

“If a child is underweight or has inadequate height and requires special attention, such children will also be immediately identified so that the appropriate schemes and support can reach them,” he said.

The Home Minister said maternal healthcare would be monitored from pregnancy until the nursing period, while every child would remain under the tracker until the age of 16 years.

According to HM Shah, nearly 16 schemes from four state government departments have already been integrated into the platform, including the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, Janani Suraksha Yojana, Janani Shishu Suraksha Programme, Saksham Anganwadi Poshan, Universal Immunisation Programme, Mission Indradhanush, PM Poshan, Mission Vatsalya, the National Child Health Programme, the National Adolescent Health Programme, Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana and the PM CARES for Children Scheme.

He added that 16 schemes of the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment for Dalit and tribal children, along with the National Child Labour Scheme, had also been integrated.

“This successful initiative brings together… these schemes into one platform. The Tracker will ensure that no eligible beneficiary is left out and that the administration takes responsibility for ensuring that everyone receives the benefits due to them,” HM Shah said.

He said every child would receive a unique digital identity linked to birth records, allowing benefits under different schemes to be delivered through a common platform.

“The biggest challenges in governance have been the absence of a common identity, beneficiaries being left out, eligible people not receiving benefits, and the government itself not reaching them. The PM Family Care Tracker will address all these shortcomings together,” he said.

HM Shah added that “the pilot project would be evaluated before being expanded further”, expressing confidence that it would eventually establish a comprehensive monitoring system covering every child from the mother’s womb until the age of 16 years.

–IANS

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