This weblog publish is being visitor written by Shreya Arora on Cisco’s India Money Grant staff, the place she helps the rollout and governance of CSR applications throughout India. Drawing on seven years of expertise in program growth and fundraising, Shreya brings a holistic view of the nonprofit world and a robust need to translate native wants into real-world options.
Shreya’s dedication to inclusive, community-driven change is fueled by the inspiration she finds in collaborating with Cisco’s various community of companions.
Within the bustling lanes of India’s villages and cities, goals typically collide with limitations. For thousands and thousands of households, social welfare applications maintain the promise of a brighter future; nevertheless, the pathways to those advantages are sometimes managed by older, lower-tech programs that may be complicated to navigate. In 2018, Cisco partnered with Indus Motion, an India-based non-profit, to deal with this problem, digitally remodeling important social safety programs to be extra citizen-friendly and efficient.
Via our ever-evolving partnership, Cisco and Indus Motion have helped numerous weak residents remodel their lives for the higher by rising their entry to schooling, maternal well being, labor welfare, and extra. Learn on to find out how Indus Motion is utilizing inventive digital options to drive ecosystem innovation, constructing extra resilient and thriving communities within the course of.
Bridging the hole: Training for each baby
Training may be transformational for anybody—but, for a lot of low-income households in India, it stays elusive. Recognizing this problem, Cisco and Indus Motion joined collectively to help the implementation of Part 12(1)(c) of India’s Proper to Training (RTE) Act. This coverage mandates that 25% of seats in non-public, unaided faculties be reserved for youngsters from economically deprived sections and teams.
With Cisco’s help, Indus Motion developed an Training-Administration Data System (EdMIS), an progressive know-how platform designed to streamline the RTE admissions course of. The work spanned three states full-time and supported 4 others, guaranteeing admissions for about 2.15lakh (215,000) college students. From faculty and pupil registrations to utility lotteries, reimbursements, and pupil monitoring, EdMIS has simplified complicated administrative workflows and ensured transparency throughout the ecosystem.
Households like Somesh’s, whose son gained admission to a personal faculty below RTE, live proof of the transformative energy of this initiative. “With out this provision, enrolling our baby in a personal faculty would have been almost not possible,” Somesh’s mom shared. “This coverage helps households like ours. We hope it continues to help others like us sooner or later.”
Indus Motion’s flagship challenge wasn’t nearly quick outcomes—it was about constructing scalable, replicable, sustainable options for the long run. By launching the EdMIS platform in states like Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, and Haryana, whereas supporting others in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh, the partnership laid the groundwork for lasting systemic change.
Supporting pregnant and first-time moms
In 2020, Cisco and Indus Motion expanded their attain to help pregnant and first-time moms below the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), a welfare program for maternal well being. The target of PMMVY is to provide partial compensation to pregnant girls and lactating moms who had been working and needed to expertise a wage loss because of the being pregnant.
Impressed by the EdMIS use case, a dashboard and hotline had been developed to streamline operational efficiencies and knowledge monitoring for the state of Uttar Pradesh, whereas offering a discussion board for the recipients to hunt help. Over 18,000 girls obtained all three instalments of the money profit, and the challenge witnessed over 60,000 new registrations.
Money advantages are delivered in a well timed method, with further enhancements in service supply. Past this, this system has resulted in a rise in health-seeking habits—reminiscent of antenatal and prenatal check-ups.
Safeguarding labor welfare
In 2025, Cisco and Indus Motion renewed their partnership with a daring new focus: bettering welfare for employees registered below the Constructing and Different Building Employees Welfare Board (BOCWWB). Leveraging the teachings discovered from RTE implementation, the companions goal to deploy know-how to simplify entry to advantages, handle grievances, and improve governance for employees and their households.
Cisco’s funding in grievance redressal mechanisms has already confirmed invaluable, serving to households efficiently navigate the often-confusing welfare panorama. By listening to residents’ considerations, Indus Motion has not solely resolved particular person instances but in addition used these insights to strengthen insurance policies and processes on the state stage.
Working in the direction of a future the place good schooling is for everybody
Our partnership with Indus Motion is greater than only a program; it’s a motion—an illustration of how know-how, when paired with Objective, can dismantle limitations, construct bridges, and enhance essential ecosystems. As Cisco and Indus Motion proceed their journey, the teachings discovered and milestones achieved will function a playbook for driving scalable, sustainable change throughout India.
To study extra about Indus Motion’s initiatives and discover methods to become involved, go to their web site at indusaction.org. Collectively, we are able to create higher social safety programs that work for everybody.
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