BMC goes on Child Tracking mission

Vishnu, a 10-year-old ragpicker from the Fort area, spends most of his day segregating and recycling garbage.

A native of Tamil Nadu, the youngster refuses to attend Marathi-medium schools in the city. “I like it here,” he says.

“What is the point of going to school?” Vishnu, who sleeps on pavements, is not alone. There are thousands of children like him who work all day and then rest their wary little bodies on the mean streets of Mumbai.

But the civic authorities in the city want to change all that. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is spearheading a programme to track and rehabilitate all children under 14 years old and save them from a life of servitude. It has launching a software called Child Tracking in the city to rescue children, who are not attending any school, under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan.

According to Pratham, an NGO, 78,000 children in the city do not attend any school. And, the software is supposed to work wonders on these underprivileged children.

The software, which was first introduced in Orissa, is also supposed to stop scams like the recent case of over one lakh students who were reported “missing” from schools under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan. Narendra Kawde, state project director of Maharashtra Prathamik Shikshan Parishad, says, “We are serious about computerising details of over 1 crore children in the state.”

The state plans to survey children who do not attend any school or do not have access to any formal education. Such children will receive an identification number, and the system will store details related to residence, profile of parents and age. SS Shinde, BMC deputy municipal commissioner, says, “Once children are enrolled, the software will track their attendance and academic progress.”