Gyeonggi-do to Pilot 'Child Meal Support Platform' in Yongin and Uiwang Starting May

by Lee YeongKyu

Published 26 Apr.2023 07:09(KST)

Gyeonggi Provincial Government Gwanggyo New Office Building

Gyeonggi Province will pilot the 'Child Meal Support Platform,' which allows meals to be ordered contactlessly via delivery apps, starting in May in Yongin and Uiwang cities, the first of its kind nationwide.

The Child Meal Support Platform is a system that enables the use of Gyeonggi Province's public delivery app, 'Baedal Teukgeup,' with the existing child meal card, which previously only allowed on-site face-to-face payments.

Gyeonggi Province developed the platform after being selected in January 2022 for the 'Vulnerable Groups Non-face-to-face Life Care Platform Construction' project, organized by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Information Society Agency.

From the 1st of next month, children holding child meal cards in Yongin and Uiwang cities can sign up as members on the province's public delivery app 'Baedal Teukgeup' and order and pay for food using their child meal cards within a daily limit of up to 20,000 KRW.

The province expects that the launch of the Child Meal Support Platform will help children at risk of food insecurity freely choose food without feeling burdened by card usage. Payments with the child meal card can only be made within the recharged limit. Delivery fees will be supported with coupons of up to 3,000 KRW provided by 'Baedal Teukgeup.'

After this pilot period, the province plans to gradually expand the target cities and counties from next year, following verification of technical stability and user convenience.

The Child Meal Support Platform includes not only online order and payment linked to the delivery app but also features such as ▲location-based merchant search service ▲one-on-one Q&A board operation ▲monitoring of fraudulent use.

Ji Ju-yeon, Director of the Women's and Family Affairs Bureau of the province, said, "This will lay the foundation for a comfortable and sustainable meal system for children," and promised, "We will closely monitor the pilot project to promptly address any issues or system errors to ensure users do not experience inconvenience."