States have been asked to send data of vaccinated children along with mothers’ names, addresses and phone numbers. The ministry is also in the process of setting up a call centre that will help in verifying the authenticity of the data.
The Government of India provides vaccines and also meets the operational costs of the immunisation process. However, according to Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, there was no system in place to ensure if the money sent from the Centre was well spent. So far, the ministry depended on data sent by the states.
“We get data from the states and are left with no choice but to believe what has been sent,” said Azad.
Azad said the idea came to him while he was answering a Parliament question on the number of children getting vaccinated. “I thought that it was necessary to know if the money is spent for the purpose it is sent. We have now decided to have a verifying system,” he said.
The National Informatics Centre will set up the monitoring system, which, Azad said, will help bring down the infant mortality rate (IMR).