Samhita

Category: Uncategorized

  • Farmers

    Farmers

    Through the REVIVE Allaince, Brihati Foundation is supporting 2 batches of farmer cohorts in the state of Gujarat, by providing them with working capital through Returnable Grants as a financial instrument. The farmer cohort funded by Brihati is supported by Somnath Farmers Producer Company as an on-ground implementation partner. The grant was provided in the form of subsidized vouchers to avail agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, seeds etc for their harvesting season.

    The farmer cohort’s first batch has been completed with 100% repayment rate. The amounts recovered has now been channelised into supporting another set of farmers. Following are the challenges faced by the Farmers which fueled the need for timely working capital support:

    • Being small scale farmers, each member holds between 2 to 19 acres of land which is used for crop farming or animal husbandry. They usually grow groundnut & cotton crops.
    • Depending on the crop season, farmers reach out to various farmer producer organizations for the supply of agricultural inputs.
    • Due to seasonality, however, most small to marginal farmers remain reliant on money lenders in their regions; to whom they end up paying very high-interest rates.
    • Due to COVID-19, and recent take cyclones caused heavy disruption, leading to  uncertainty of funds and high-interest rates prevailing this year
    • Grant to these farmers allowed them to continue production even in times of crisis
    • In the past, scenarios of high-interest costs have led to inflation of prices; a timely grant aims to mitigate such a situation.
  • Construction Workers

    Construction Workers

    The infrastructure sector is one of the largest employers of informal labour in urban India, necessitating worker communities to relocate to cities. These workers, often with little to no access to social security, often struggle when confronted with socio-economic challenges. This resurfaced as a challenge when workers such as construction workers, painters, carpenters, masons, etc. were worst hit during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic due to sudden cessation of work, lack of job security and poor social protection. While the government of India responded with provisions of relief payments, reimbursements, DBTs, and other support, access and awareness still remained a major roadblock in bridging the gap between worker communities and the available relief. Moreover, considering the informal and migrant nature of the construction worker cohort, there are erratic support channels to guarantee and handhold each worker to gain access to basic identity documents and social protection schemes. 

    Revive strives to facilitate the recovery of worker communities by providing integrated support in terms of social protection. By standardizing the application facilitation process across construction sites and labour colonies, construction workers have been supported with the creation of basic savings accounts, enabling life/accident/health insurance schemes, PAN cards, BOCW (Building and Other Construction Works) and e-Shram cards for the workers to secure their future. This alliance of investors, corporates and developers that are a part of the infrastructure industry, has a common goal of reviving livelihoods within the industry while also adopting better labour practices in the process. These social protection linkages serve as key entry points to workers, such that they are better placed to seek entitlements and are well-informed about his/her social protection eligibility, which further enables them to support their family and extended community. 

    Our partnerships with UNDP, the UK government, along with the commendable support received from like-minded funders and implementing partners has allowed us to commit to providing social protection to 8,500+ workers and are on the path to onboarding new cohorts. Our implementation partner, Haqdarshak Empowerment Solutions Pvt. Ltd. has already facilitated linkages across Delhi-NCR and Maharashtra and continues to demonstrate the need for social protection for a cohort as mobile and migrant as construction workers. With active collaborations with HDFC Capital Pvt. Ltd, Info Edge, Sunteck Realty and Shapoorji Pallonji Investment Advisors, we have already facilitated applications for relevant government schemes and ensured end-to-end service delivery of benefits to workers. 

    What has been the impact so far?

    • Supporting basic identity documentation: Having witnessed the aftermath of COVID-19 on migrant construction workers accessing entitlements, the need for basic identity documents as critical entry points to social safety nets was reiterated. Revive has been supporting workers with BOCW cards and renewals, e-Shram registrations, updated and linked Aadhaar cards, to name a few, such that they are recognized in the construction ecosystem and formally registered as beneficiaries of government schemes.  
    • Bridging the gap in awareness on basic eligibility: Through the course of the program, workers are oriented to the gamut of schemes that they are eligible for, along with the benefits. With limited literacy and poor awareness about entitlements, Revive strives to equip a worker with foundational information on various scheme offerings to bridge the information asymmetry obstructing benefit access. 
    • Strengthening support channels for workers:  Considering the migrant, construction worker ecosystem and the constant change in employers or contractors, it is tedious for workers to process applications and scheme-related paperwork by themselves. Often, the complexity of the process itself poses a barrier to access. Haqdarshak facilitates applications for each worker, such that there is end-to-end processing of schemes and unlocking of benefits such as Ayushman Bharat (health insurance), PM Suraksha Bima Yojana (accident insurance), PM Jan Dhan Yojana (bank accounts), to name a few.
  • Blue-Collared Workers

    Blue-Collared Workers

    Given the steep hit that the garment industry took due to COVID-19 and the impact it had on the livelihood of garment workers, Arvind Foundation has partnered with Samhita-CGF and impact partner Learnet to provide financial support, re-skilling and placements to ex-Arvind workers who were laid off during the pandemic. Arvind Foundation is the CSR arm of Arvind Ltd, a global player in the textile and apparel manufacturing industry and they became an integral member of the REVIVE alliance – aiming to create a better normal.

    Program Structure 

    Training:

    • Basic job readiness training

    Placement:

    • Identification & mapping of jobs according to the skills and location preference of the selected candidate
    • Collection of placement proofs from employers and KYC documents from candidates 

    Returnable Grant:

    • After preliminary KYC and placement verification conducted by Learnet and CGF, the list of candidates and their documents are shared with Supermoney for verification and onboarding
    • After candidates accept terms of the returnable grant through calls conducted by Supermoney, the batch is finalized by CGF 
    • The equivalent amount is transferred from CGF to Supermoney after a round of internal approvals
    • Upon receipt of the transferred amount, the grant worth INR 4,500 is disbursed to the candidates before they receive their first salary
    • After the deferment period of one month, Supermoney sends out repayment reminders and links to the candidates
    • The candidate repays the grant in five instalments of INR 900 each
    • Repayments are collected, reconciled and transferred back to CGF account by Supermoney

    What did we learn?

    Mobilization:

    Learnet is a training and placement agency and they have limited connections with the local communities. There is a need for the intervention of a grassroots NGO or organization that can aid mobilization and ensure that the program serves the beneficiaries in need (people who lost jobs on account of the pandemic in this case). 

    Learnet, CGF and SuperMoney struggled to reach out to these communities and conduct monitoring/impact assessment after their placements and receipt of RG. The involvement of an intermediary organisation can improve accountability when it comes to repayment and will further streamline the RG related processes. 

    Curriculum Design:

    Candidates are associated with Learnet for a short span of 4.5 hours and are mapped to a job almost immediately and have very limited connection with them. The curriculum is very basic and does not equip them with the required skill sets. Since the cohort was heterogeneous in terms of their socio-economic background, qualifications and technical skills, Learnet struggled to map the available openings to their skill sets and could not fully satisfy their requirements. There is a need to design a longer upskilling/reskilling program with a focused approach that aims to train candidates to take up job roles that are in demand (Refer reskilling note proposed to Arvind). 

    It is also imperative to incorporate financial and digital literacy modules into the curriculum to ensure uptake of digital tools amongst communities. 

    Capacity Building:

    Training partners are new to hybrid programs including financial instruments like Returnable Grants. There is a need for capacity building of these training partners to improve communication and ensure a seamless flow of clean data. 

    Returnable Grant:

    These salaried blue-collar workers earn an average salary of INR 10,000 – 12,000 and have the capacity to repay. Based on informed consent and prior assessment of their financial health, e-mandates can be executed for the candidates willing to accept the terms & conditions. Alternatively, suitable channels can be created for candidates who wish to make offline payments (via cash/cheque) and the repayment options should be designed in such a way that it leaves no one behind. Additional support to open bank accounts, correction of KYC particulars and encouraging the community to adopt healthier financial practices and be undertaken by implementing agencies.

  • Beautypreneurs

    Beautypreneurs

    The COVID pandemic resulted in the shutting down of a lot of businesses and beauty salons were one of them. The extended lockdowns resulted in low to absolutely nil customer footfall. 

    The beauty and personal care market is expected to touch $10 billion by 2021, growing at an annual rate of 5-6%, according to a report by the Indian Beauty & Hygiene Association. However, the majority of beauty and wellness businesses, including salons, spas, and barbershops, fall either in the small and medium enterprise or the unorganised category. This sector employs approximately seven million skill-based professionals, mostly from the weaker sections of society, according to industry estimates. Two out of three employees in the industry are women or migrant workers who have been the worst hit by the extended lockdowns.

    When the lockdown was lifted, the entrepreneurs showed a desire to adapt their businesses to the new reality but did not have the resources to do so. Innovative financing in the form of a returnable grant was the solution here. Under the Salon-I program, Godrej became the mentor of these businesses and funded this particular initiative. The entrepreneurs were provided with small ticket sized grants ranging from INR 5000 to INR 20000 which was to be used as working capital to restart and build the resilience of their respective businesses. 

    The entrepreneurs had only a moral obligation to repay the grant given to them with the vision that if the money comes back, it will be used to aid more such entrepreneurs in the network. A total of INR 55 lakhs has been disbursed among 472 beautypreneurs so far.

  • Corporate Social Responsibility Rules Amendments 2021

    On 22nd January 2021, the Ministry Of Corporate Affairs brought significant changes to the existing CSR rules.

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  • How much do you know about wearing masks?

    How much do you know about wearing masks?

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  • Join us in REVIVING India

    Join us in REVIVING India

    The most vital factor to contain the destruction created by Covid-19 is to empower the ones dispossessed and at risk. To restore the livelihoods lost during the pandemic, we have partnered with USAID, MSDF and Omidyar Network India to launch a $6.85 million blended finance facility called REVIVE.

    REVIVE will provide accessible and affordable capital in the form of grants, returnable grants and loans to previously employed or self-employed workers and at-risk nano and micro enterprises to either restart and sustain their work or find alternative business opportunities.

    With REVIVE we are expecting to support 100,000 workers and enterprises with a preference given to youth and women.

    I’m glad to inform you that REVIVE has already received support from corporates such as Arvind Limited, Godrej Consumer Products Limited and foundation like Brihati Foundation powered by Claris.

    I would like to invite you to be a part of our goal to bring people back to a road to recovery and reignite the economy.

  • Better Normal – Not just a New Normal

    Better Normal – Not just a New Normal

    COVID-19 and subsequent lockdowns brought on a convergence of crises across health, livelihoods, education and social justice. 

    Millions of people have been pushed back below the poverty line. The impact on our unskilled and semi-skilled workers, and our nano/micro entrepreneurs has been devastating. Healthcare workers and sanitation workers continue to be at the forefront of the COVID-19 response, with little support to ensure their wellbeing and protection. 

    The development sector faced its own challenges; funding to the social sector reduced substantially in 2020 and there remains high competition for a small pool of funds. 

    COVID-19 didn’t create all these issues; the virus and subsequent lockdowns exacerbated and laid bare existing systemic frailties. The vulnerable have always been one crisis away from breaking point, and COVID-19 has created innumerable breaks and fractures in our society and economy.  

    It is a paradox that those who are most vulnerable, also have an outsized role to play in re-invigorating our economy. India’s very economic recovery is in jeopardy if we do not shore up those who drive it. 

    So we are bewildered when people talk about a new normal, an alarming word that indicates a satisfaction with the status quo. For Samhita, ‘business as usual’ was never an option in 2020, and it will not be an option as we continue the battle against COVID-19 in 2021. 

    In 2021, vaccines won’t be accessible and affordable for millions for some time to come. Virus mutations may hit us and result in escalating infections and compensatory lockdowns. Our economy and society, already frail from shocks in 2020, are not yet on a clear path to recovery in 2021. 

    It is time to create a Better Normal, during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond. A Better Normal where Samaaj, Sarkar and Bazaar understand that they succeed only when our most vulnerable communities survive and thrive. A Better Normal that gives hope and joy to everyone.

    The aspiration for a Better Normal led us to build two platforms with bilaterals / multilaterals, companies, foundations and social organisations – REVIVE, a blended finance facility to ensure better livelihoods for 100,000 workers and micro-entrepreneurs, and India Protectors Alliance, a collaborative platform to support 500,000 healthcare and sanitation workers respond safely and effectively to the COVID-19 and other crisis. Both platforms leverage limited resources, and maximize the impact of existing systems to create impact at scale. 

    It’s imperative that we band together to create this Better Normal. To begin with, I invite you to articulate what a Better Normal means and through this interaction, we want to create a collection of ideas and perspectives which will help us shape better strategies in India’s development sector, and truly achieve a Better Normal.

    I would love to hear from you on how we can create a Better normal for all the people we serve. Please feel free to contact me at priya.naik@dev.samhita.org.

    I also invite you to engage us on social media with the hashtag #BetterNormal.

  • Business responsibility and brand purpose in a better normal

    Business responsibility and brand purpose in a better normal

    The better normal re-imagines business environments where social value is an integral aspect of growth, putting stakeholders and environmental guardianship at the centre of business strategy, a strategy that evolves from inputs to outcomes, from individual to ecosystem, and from delivering services to building capacity and enabling the market.

    To achieve this, we are guiding companies in evolving from compliance-driven CSR to strategic and catalytic CSR that incorporates scale, sustainability and a stakeholder focus into business strategies. We enable companies to align their core competencies with the needs of the social sector, build catalytic partnerships with stakeholders with in-depth knowledge of social issues, first-hand experience and the networks to execute substantive impact initiatives and by utilising catalytic finance tools to promote a longer-term, outcome-oriented approach for initiatives.

    This approach bridges the gap between purpose and action, creating strategies that balance people, profit and planet, helping you elevate your business responsibility, and creating a better normal for the communities and environments that interact with your business.

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