Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah launched the pilot project of the PM Family Care Tracker (PM-FCT) on 28 June 2026 in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, along with a Health Passport for children. The platform is an integrated digital system designed to track the health, nutrition, education, and welfare benefits of children from the prenatal stage up to 18 years of age. By converging data from multiple government databases into a single interface, the initiative aims to eliminate administrative gaps and ensure that no eligible mother or child is left out of welfare schemes.
What Is the PM Family Care Tracker?
The PM Family Care Tracker (PM-FCT) is a family-centric digital platform that creates a unified record for every beneficiary by integrating data from health, nutrition, education, and social welfare systems. Developed through the coordinated efforts of the Gujarat Health Department, Women and Child Development Department, and Education Department, the pilot is being implemented in the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, the constituency represented by Amit Shah himself.
At its core, the PM-FCT assigns every mother and child a unique digital identity linked to either the Birth Registration Number (BRN) issued under the Civil Registration System (CRS) or the Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) ID managed by the National Health Authority under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). This single identifier replaces the fragmented records that different departments currently maintain separately.
The platform is designed to track beneficiaries across the full lifecycle of childhood, from the moment of pregnancy confirmation through to adulthood at 18 years of age. In some references, the tracking scope is defined up to 16 years, but the Health Passport component maintains records up to the age of 18.
How the Digital Platform Works
The PM-FCT functions as a proactive governance ecosystem rather than a passive data repository. The platform continuously monitors key indicators such as vaccination status, malnutrition levels, school enrolment, and dropout rates for every registered child in the constituency.
If a child misses a scheduled vaccination or drops out of school, the system generates an automatic alert. These alerts are routed to local officials, legislators, and Members of Parliament, enabling immediate follow-up action. This mechanism transforms welfare delivery from a reactive model where families must navigate multiple departments to claim benefits, into a proactive model where the government reaches out to the beneficiary.
The dashboard provides a real-time, 360-degree view of each beneficiary, consolidating data that was previously scattered across silos such as the ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) system, the Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) portal, the Poshan Tracker application, and school health programmes.
Integrating Fragmented Welfare Databases
One of the most significant challenges in India’s welfare architecture has been the fragmentation of data across departments. A pregnant woman registered under the Pradhan Mantri Matritva Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) may have her health records with one department, her nutrition data with the ICDS system, and her child’s school records with an entirely different database. The PM-FCT solves this by acting as a convergence layer over these existing systems.
The platform integrates data from:
| Data Source | Department | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Birth and Death Registration | Registrar General of India | Unique identity and vital statistics |
| Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) Portal | Health Department | Maternal health and child immunisation |
| Poshan Tracker | Women and Child Development | Nutrition monitoring for children 0-6 years |
| ICDS | Women and Child Development | Anganwadi services, supplementary nutrition |
| Child Tracking System (CTS) | Education Department | School enrolment and dropout tracking |
| School Health Programme | Health and Education | Health check-ups in schools |
This convergence means that a single dashboard can show whether a child has received all required vaccinations, is attending school regularly, and is meeting nutritional growth targets. The system is expected to significantly reduce the problem of leakage where beneficiaries either receive less than entitled or are excluded entirely due to poor record keeping.
The Health Passport: A Digital Health Card for Every Child
Alongside the PM-FCT, Amit Shah also launched the Health Passport, a digital health card issued to every newborn in the pilot area. This passport contains the child’s complete medical records, including details of hereditary and other diseases, vaccination history, and growth metrics, and is maintained up to the age of 18 years.
The Health Passport serves a dual purpose. For the family, it acts as a portable, lifelong health record that can be accessed at any healthcare facility. For the government, it enables zero-omission vaccination tracking, ensuring that every child receives vaccines against 11 serious diseases as part of the Universal Immunisation Programme. Gujarat Health Minister Prafull Pansheriya stated that the system would ensure no child in the state misses vaccination, aligning with the broader national goal of Antyodaya reaching the last person in society.
Significance: From Administrative Gaps to Last Mile Delivery
The PM-FCT represents the next logical step in India’s shift from a welfare-state model to a technology-enabled governance model. Over the past 12 years, the government has introduced Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to eliminate middlemen, built the JAM Trinity (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) for financial inclusion, and launched schemes covering housing, electricity, water, LPG, food grains, and health insurance for nearly 70 crore poor citizens. The PM-FCT builds on this foundation by addressing a persistent blind spot: the inability of separate departments to see the complete picture of a family’s welfare status.
Reducing Maternal and Infant Mortality
Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel described the platform as a sensitive digital health infrastructure that will play a significant role in reducing maternal and infant mortality and combating malnutrition. India’s maternal mortality ratio and infant mortality rate remain areas of concern, particularly in rural and tribal regions. By enabling early detection of risk factors such as missed antenatal check-ups or underweight newborns, the PM-FCT can trigger timely medical intervention.
Eliminating School Dropouts
The education tracking component addresses the problem of school dropouts, a persistent challenge in India’s education system. By linking birth registration data to school enrolment records, the platform can identify children who never enrolled or dropped out mid-stream. Alerts to local elected representatives create accountability and enable grassroots-level volunteers to intervene.
A Model for National Expansion
The pilot is initially limited to the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency. However, statements from Gujarat Health Minister Prafull Pansheriya make it clear that the state intends to make this a successful model for the entire country. If the pilot succeeds, the architecture can be replicated across other states, leveraging the ABHA ID and Birth Registration Number frameworks that already have national coverage. This aligns with the goals of Viksit Bharat @2047 and the government’s broader vision of data-driven governance.
Key Takeaways
- The PM Family Care Tracker (PM-FCT) pilot project was launched on 28 June 2026 in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, by Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah.
- The platform tracks the health, nutrition, education, and welfare of children from the prenatal stage up to 18 years using a unique ID linked to the Birth Registration Number or ABHA ID.
- Automated alerts are generated when a child misses a vaccination or drops out of school, with notifications sent to local officials, legislators, and MPs.
- The platform integrates data from six major sources: Birth and Death Registration, RCH Portal, Poshan Tracker, ICDS, Child Tracking System, and School Health Programme.
- A digital Health Passport containing medical records, hereditary disease details, and vaccination history is issued to every newborn, maintained up to the age of 18 years.
- The pilot is implemented in the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency and, if successful, is proposed to be expanded across Gujarat and later replicated in other states.
