the goan I network
PANAJI
On a day when it was revealed that Sulakshana Sawant, wife of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, joined her teacher colleagues in a team of enumerators going door-to-door for the community health survey, the Opposition Congress raised the spectre of potential data reach through the app used for it and designed by the private agency.
The CM's wife is a teacher at the Shri Shantadurga Higher Secondary School and joined the survey in Bicholim taluka. She is also the mahila morcha chief of the ruling BJP in Goa and joined the survey work voluntarily. She was not among the list of teachers drafted for the survey work, tasks otherwise shouldered by medical professionals and trained health workers.
Sulakshana's identity as the CM's wife apparently went unnoticed while working on the field but a photograph uploaded on social networking site gave it away to a wider audience. Only 5 of the 40 teachers from her school were listed for the survey work and Sulakshana wasn't one among the five, yet she joined in voluntarily.
Her husband who is in the second year in office as chief minister meanwhile has faced flak for rooting for the survey whose efficacy and objective -- to collect data and devise future Covid-19 strategies -- remains unexplained.
Meanwhile the Goa Pradesh Congress Commitee president, Girish Chodankar on Thursday said, data collected from lakhs of Goans could potentially be leaked and used commercially.
"This entire exercise was conducted by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on the advice of the BJP, with the intention of collecting voter data for the 2022 Assembly elections. The government engaged the services of a private agency to provide services through a mobile app. It is now to be seen how much expenditure the government has incurred on this unfruitful exercise," a statement by Chodankar said.
Chodankar said the data collected so far and available with the private agency compromises privacy.
"There is scope for misuse of data for commercial purpose as it can be sold to marketing companies or transferred to BJP headquarters at Panaji for electoral benefits," Chodankar alleged.
Collecting information of the population related to travel history and general health condition of every person in each household, particularly if flu and other Covid-19 symptoms are experienced by anyone, is what the surveyors are doing door-to-door as part of the survey.
