In the last eight years, we have unlocked benefits worth over INR 14,000 crore for close to 50 lakh customers and over 40,000 businesses in more than 24 states.

We have serviced 112 trades including fishermen, farmers, construction workers, sanitation workers, well diggers, ‘raj mistries’, mine workers, sex workers, handloom weavers, domestic workers, cobblers, leather workers, even Kendu leaf collectors and toddy tappers!

We have managed to get farmers (one of our major target cohorts) access to credit, tech, and equipment that can help them protect their crops and better their yield in villages that still don’t have roads, power, or even water.

We have trained 22,773 women Agents who have had to fight through deeply entrenched biases within their communities, often in places with a terrifying history of violence towards women, to fearlessly carve out identities of their own and establish themselves as equals.

Aniket was awarded the Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, 2022 by The Schwab Foundation. Shortly after, he attended the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2023. In the same year, Shark Tank made us a household name.

Today, our team consists of over 450 people. We have 4 offices in 4 major cities. We have 57 active Yojana Kendras in 20 states. We have dispatched close to 12,000 Yojana Cards. We’re launching a bank-linked Yojana Card which will be integrated with financial services, something that will revolutionise the way social protection is accessed in India (and possibly, even the world).

We have hit a scale that was only a dream back in 2016. We’re now gearing up for an audacious target of reaching 100 million customers by 2030.

We will be releasing a detailed impact report soon.

Just like last year, we have distributed our impact numbers across various sections —

01/ Vehicles for Sustainable Change — Our Cumulative Reach
02/ Building Positive Socio-Economic Outcomes — Our Geographical Reach
03/ Our Contribution to the Enrollment of Citizens in Flagship Schemes
04/ Thematic Impact Areas
05/ Documentation — A Critical Need
06/ Geographical Impact
07/ Target Cohorts

Notes:
Benefit Value Unlocked and Agent Earnings
— Revised Numbers

On the Revision of Benefit Value Unlocked

Over the past 8 years of working with citizens at the last mile, we have gained valuable insights into the realities of the impact of social protection schemes and essential document access. Over time, these learnings, backed by secondary research, have prompted us to refine our approach to quantifying the benefits of these schemes to capture their true potential more accurately.

With this revision, we have made an effort to capture aspects like hidden savings, ripple effects, and other dimensions some key schemes and documents entail, beyond just the direct and tangible benefits of welfare services and direct benefit transfers.

For example, in our previous calculations of the benefit value unlocked for insurance schemes, we primarily considered the savings in premiums compared to similar private insurance. For a more holistic picture, however, it is important to account for the broader impact of such schemes, such as their role in preventing distress borrowings and the resulting savings on financing costs.

Basic identification documents also play a crucial role in enabling social security. Possessing them is fundamental to unlocking a range of scheme benefits. While quantifying the benefit value of a document itself may seem less significant at first glance, a closer look highlights the importance of considering its practical applications — especially when it comes to schemes where the document in question is indispensable.

In these cases, factors like the number of intended beneficiaries, budget allocations, and actual expenditures of such schemes become necessary considerations.

We believe that this revised approach to quantifying the benefit value unlocked offers a more realistic and thorough depiction of the extensive impact that can potentially be unlocked through documents and welfare programs.

On the Revision of Agent Earnings

Until 2022, the ‘Agent Earnings’ figure exclusively represented the direct earnings generated by ‘Haqdarshaks’ from end users.

However, as of 2023, this figure will include the direct earnings from end users as well as the income accrued by our Agents through partner-sponsored projects.

In these projects, the ‘Haqdarshaks’ fee, which would typically be borne by the end user, has been wholly or partially subsidized by our valued partners.

Linkages to social protection are more about long-term sustainability than the immediate benefits they provide. In fact, welfare programmes help build resilience in the long run and enable improvement across various stages of the welfare value chain.

To date, we have impacted more than 4.9 million citizens and 41,553 businesses! Below is a snapshot of our overall numbers.

From Nagaland to Gujarat, from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu, we have worked across 29 states and Union Territories! While this is a significant number for a social impact startup, it’s still a drop in the ocean considering the number of families in need of social protection. We have miles to go but a big shoutout to each member of every field team at HQ — this would not have been possible without your support.

States

(Apr 2015 – Nov 2023)

UTs

(Apr 2015 – Nov 2023)

Districts

(Apr 2015 – Nov 2023)

Talukas

(Apr 2015 – Nov 2023)

Villages

(Apr 2015 – Nov 2023)

Pin Codes

(Apr 2015 – Nov 2023)

Flagship welfare programmes by the Government of India address key concerns including access to healthcare, nutrition, education, employment, housing, financial security, and social security. Some flagship schemes have been designed to move the needle on climate change and gender equality, while others support agricultural workers and nano and micro enterprises to increase productivity. Through camps and door-to-door outreach, we have helped bring greater awareness about these flagship schemes, all the while assisting citizens in unlocking their benefits.

Other Key Schemes

Our impact cuts across major thematic areas in alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Note that we are sector-agnostic — all schemes that we help build pathways for are ultimately aimed at reducing inequality.

Identity documents with accurate information, whether for KYC, compliance, or regulatory purposes, are the first step towards accessing benefits, and therefore, are a critical need for building an efficient social protection infrastructure. Most of the citizens we serve don’t have an Aadhaar card or say, a Caste Certificate; or even if they have an Aadhaar card, it probably hasn’t been seeded to their bank account which makes it impossible for them to receive benefits. These are problems we have identified over the years and have gotten better at solving. Plus, our ability to liaise with both government and bank officials gives us an edge — we are now faster, better, and more efficient.

Haqdarshak’s regional teams — North, West, South, East, and Central — focus on building capacities and strengthening our services and partnerships in each region. Here is a snapshot of our work across the country.

*All numbers below reflect the benefit value unlocked by us.

Most of the beneficiaries we work with are part of the informal sector. This includes agricultural workers, construction workers, micro-enterprise owners, ‘migrant workers’, and various other workers involved in a range of manufacturing and service occupations. Welfare programmes for the unorganised sector are often tied to the type of work performed, so they can be designed to cater to the sector-specific needs of target groups.

Our work has enhanced the accessibility of documents and identity and occupation-linked welfare schemes for various target groups. We conduct outreach and awareness-building activities through corporate and non-profit organisations focusing on critical and excluded groups of individuals. HQ’s work impacts various target cohorts — from farmers to sanitation workers, and now even the LGBTQIA+ community.