Pune | 7th January 2021: Haqdarshak Empowerment Solutions Private Limited, a civic-tech start-up which eases access to government welfare services, is organizing an insightful webinar on ‘Social security and welfare during a pandemic’, on 11th January 2020 from 3:00 to 4:00 pm, as part of its five-year anniversary series. Haqdarshak ensures citizens at the last mile get access to government welfare schemes and services for a small fee. This is done through a mobile and web SAAS platform for corporate partners complimented by a training platform used by community entrepreneurs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought focus to the basic social security net for Indian citizens. Typically, the disadvantaged being the large population of migrants and daily wage workers who do not have access to any form of social security due to varied reasons. There is also the issue of missing or wrong critical documentation which is needed to access all these benefits. The webinar will focus on collectively addressing these issues and reflect upon the learnings during the pandemic.
Speaking about this, Aniket Doegar, CEO and co-founder, Haqdarshak, said, “There are over 800 million citizens living below the poverty line in India. A majority of them are daily wage laborers and migrants who lack access to basic amenities as also governmental schemes and social security benefits. Through this webinar, we aim to discuss how we can bring this category of citizens in the formal social security net. It is important to understand that this category of our society is a critical cog in the wheel of development and therefore, addressing their concerns in imperative.”
The speakers at the webinar include Kachina Chawla, Senior Strategic Information Advisor, USAID; Priya Naik, Founder and CEO at Samhita Social Ventures Pvt Ltd; Shrayana Bhattacharya, Senior Economist, World Bank; Safeena Husain, Founder and Executive Director, Educate Girls & Amit Garg, Livelihoods and Migration Expert among others. The discussion, apart from highlighting the need of the hour, is also a call to action to private and public sector entities for efforts on their part in becoming the agent for change.
Haqdarshak has also published their five-year impact report, “Maximum Support, Maximum Impact—5 Years of Transformation at the Last-Mile”. Among other things, the report showcases the outcomes of a survey carried out among over 500 people. In the survey, not only did 78% report that they found the application process very easy through the Haqdarshak implementation process but also expressed that their scheme awareness has increased. About 86% also mentioned that they are likely to reach out to Haqdarshak again for a scheme application and that it is a trusted service.
According to one of the beneficiaries, Ram Singh from Himachal Pradesh, Haqdarshak’s field agent was able to provide a lot of information on PAN Card, Ujjwala Gas Cylinder scheme, among other things. It is only because of the knowledgeable representative that he was able to get a lot of information on government schemes and how they can benefit. Since inception, Haqdarshak has reached out to 716,435 citizens and facilitated 5,32,888 applications, across 20 Indian states. Over 4,29,205 citizens have received benefits from the schemes and over INR 500 crore benefits have been channelized. During the peak of the pandemic, over 1.3 lakh citizens could benefit from welfare schemes through the Haqdarshak implementation. The Haqdarshak model has been empowering communities for the last five years, and creating livelihoods for thousands of men and women who have been trained as support agents.
