It’s been eight months since Gauri*, a middle-aged Anganwadi teacher, has been uploading data of pregnant women, mothers and children on the Poshan Tracker app. If she doesn’t have the internet or a phone, she will lose her wages.
Gauri sits in a dimly-lit room with a register in one hand and a mobile phone in another. This room functions as the Anganwadi centre for one of Delhi's localities. While coordinating with her helper, Jaya*, in distributing food among the beneficiaries at the centre, she sneaks in some time to complete the work of data entry on the app.
Apart from maintaining around 16 registers manually, Gauri updates the same data on the app, vis-a-vis the metrics like the weight and height of the children, weight of the pregnant mother, the Aadhaar number of all beneficiaries, the amount of food supplied and the state of Anganwadi centres. “Some of these data, such as food distribution, child attendance, staff location, and early childhood care and education (ECCE) activities, are required to be entered daily, while others, such as child height and weight, must be entered monthly,” said Gauri.
In case a child is malnourished, their height and weight are monitored and updated weekly, Gauri added.
Just like Gauri, there are 14 lakh Indian Anganwadi workers, who form the backbone of Mission POSHAN, started in 2018 and previously known as the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). ICDS has been in operation since 1975 and is one of the world's largest programmes focusing on early childhood nutrition, care, education, and development.
While the original ICDS mainly addressed calorie deficiency, this enhanced version of the programme addresses dietary diversity, adoption of a balanced diet, and behavioural change communication.
Anganwadi workers are the foot soldiers who have been entrusted with providing all of these services to the beneficiaries on the ground.
Previously, they kept all of the data only in registers which were maintained manually. However, they must now use a new mobile app, launched in 2020, called the "Poshan Tracker," which is a digital data collection system linked to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's Reproductive and Child Health portal. The data entered by workers is used by the government for the health status of the beneficiaries. But it's also used for "real-time monitoring" of the Anganwadi workers' jobs.
‘Our hard work has been reduced to app metrics’
The workers have been using the Poshan Tracker app on mobile phones, either provided by the government or purchased by themselves. “We have been mandated to use this app religiously since January 2023 and since then the nature of our work has drastically changed, thanks to the technology,” said Seema*, another Anganwadi worker.
Speaking to Decode, these Anganwadi workers said that the Poshan Tracker app has also made them data-gathering agents for the government along with the job of community care work. “While we still teach pre-school children and run surveys in our localities, this additional job has become another burden which needs to be delivered in stipulated time,” said Seema.
The whole day’s work that these Anganwadi workers deliver on the grounds is at the end judged on the basis of data they enter in the app. “We spend our entire day teaching, conducting surveys, distributing food, keeping track of the vaccinations, referring beneficiaries to dispensaries, motivating them to make Aadhaar cards and open bank accounts. But at the end of the day all this is just reduced to a mere number on the Poshan Tracker app,” said Seema.
Speaking to Decode, Vaishnavi Mandal, a researcher working on digital health, said, digitisation is a great tool for public health programmes but it should not be the only metric to judge if the programme is working. “It also does not mean that everything under the sun becomes data. The question needs to be asked about why the government needs so much data, of more than 150 metrics. It says that you probably don't trust the Anganwadi workers with the work,” she said.
Mandal also pointed out the socio-technical issues associated with using the app. “If we go to the urban slums of Delhi, there is no electricity, nor internet connectivity. When the basic infrastructure is not equipped to sustain such data infrastructure, how can Anganwadi workers work?” she said.
The workers complained that more often than not the server of the app crashes and they are not able to enter the daily data. There even have been times when they enter the data from their end but it does not reflect in the system. Sharing one such incident Kavita*, a young Anganwadi worker, said, “I received a notice from the government in the month of March which read that my data of 20 days in the month of January is missing. To prove that I had worked, I had to submit hard copies of the screenshots, or else I would have lost my incentives for those days.”
The workers consistently take screenshots of their work as a precautionary measure for such situations. In case the app does not work, or they are unable to feed in the daily data due to work overload or any other reason, the Anganwadi workers have to submit a written application to their head office, stating their reason.
According to Mandal, apart from quantifying their care work, the Poshan tracker app is also compromising the autonomy of Anganwadi workers. “The workers have to organise a monthly talk at their centres on topics ranging from sanitation to reproductive health, but that topic is also now dictated by the app. The topic was earlier selected by the workers themselves on the basis of what they thought was important for their area,” she said.
Underpaid and under-pressure
A number of Anganwadi workers who spoke to Decode had not received their salaries for two months. “With our meagre salary of Rs 12,000, which is most of the time delayed, we have to pay for our own internet bills. Earlier we used to receive Rs 200 extra for the internet but the government stopped paying it after October 2021,” said Gauri.
The government also does not compensate them for old or stolen mobile phones. “If the phone is not working, or if it has been stolen, we have to give Rs 10,000, and only then will they give us a new phone. We prefer buying our own phones which are way cheaper than the fine imposed”, said Seema, who had recently bought a new phone for Rs 5,000.
Frustrated over their underpaid salaries, the Anganwadi workers have participated in multiple protests against the government over the past year. As a result of the protest, their salaries were marginally increased but it led to the allegedly illegal termination of 884 Anganwadi workers and helpers.
According to Gauri, a worker can only be terminated after receiving three notices, but the workers who were terminated post the protest were given just one notice and were randomly targeted. “It was clearly done to instil fear in us of losing our jobs if we dare take such an anti-establishment stance in future,” she said.
Since the protest, the government inspection of the Anganwadi centres has significantly increased. “We have been constantly on the edge keeping up with our data entry and simultaneous field surveys. We have to be answerable for everything, from finding places to set up our Anganwadi centres and negotiating their rents; to low turn-out of students during festival seasons,” said Seema.
Moreover, the workers have also been mandated to enter their daily data only during office hours which is from 9 AM to 2 PM. “We have been told that the app tracks our location and will be reprimanded if we do this work from our homes," said Seema. Earlier, she said, they could do the data entry at night from their homes if they didn’t get time during office hours. "But now we are forced to somehow squeeze in time for updating data on the app,” said Seema.