Supporting the Underprivileged in the time of

Supporting the Underprivileged in the time of the Global Pandemic: Indus Action

Rapid response strategy developed to reduce socio-economic vulnerabilities

The global pandemic due to the SARS CoV-2 virus has consumed our daily lives, creating a new normal and world order. Undoubtably, the hardest hit world-wide are the under privileged.

To achieve the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of zero poverty, 1 million people will have to lift themselves out of poverty every week across the world. While India had lifted 271 million citizens out of poverty, the fastest rate in the last decade, the Covid-19 public health crisis continues to undo this progress and is likely to push the last half billion citizens back into extreme poverty while keeping 900 million+ Indians below the poverty line.

In response to the epidemic, the Government of India has announced welfare packages, along with an economic stimulus package to absorb the shocks to the informal and small business economy. India's own Marshall Plan is estimated to have a financial incentive of Rs 5 lakh crore to ensure economic resilience of workers and small businesses. Nearly 50% of this spending is unlikely to reach the target homes due to gaps in state capacity. Migrant workers have less access to food and housing security infrastructure, as we have seen recently from migrant protests across the country. To ensure 100% realization of this safety net for the last half billion citizens, last mile delivery speed and efficacy time delivery is the need of the hour.

Indus Action (IA) has developed a rapid response strategy to mitigate the socio-economic vulnerabilities of less fortunate citizens due to the epidemic. The main focus is to ensure that citizens are able to take advantage of emergency social security in terms of cash and in-kind transfers, causing an economic setback to their livelihoods. This is being done by pro-active outbound calling to citizens by over 2000+ motivated volunteers to ensure last mile delivery of food, health and direct benefit transfers over the past two weeks. Over 1,000 daily calls are being made in states including Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Bihar, Gujarat, MP,Maharashtra, UP, Rajasthan and Delhi to a current database of over 4.5 lac disadvantaged families.

Additionally, a national helpline has been set up to address citizen grievances across 19 States.

The solution includes a growing network of 2,000+ citizen champions, creating a national dashboard to reflect progress, daily data analytics reports and fortnightly governance reports.

General Trends:

Need/ Metric	Average*	Highest	Lowest
Lack of Food	32%	Bihar - 87%	TS – 12%
Need for Medicines	13%	Kerala - 37%	GJ – 1%
Unemployment post lock-down	42%	Delhi - 59%	UP – 31%
No access to Welfare Schemes	30%	Bihar - 73%	Chhattisgarh – 8%

* Number of respondents per State varies

1.       Access to ration is limited and food being sold is overpriced

2.       People are not sure if ‘Jan Dhan’ accounts have been credited with money due

3.       Landlords have not eased rent dues

4.       Application for pension by the elderly is a challenge

5.       Distribution of ration is seeing an imbalance with some regions receiving some essentials, while some receiving just rice and salt

6.       Access to fresh vegetables and cooking oil is an issue

7.       Cab drivers working for private players cannot avail benefits applicable to cab/taxi drivers

8.       Severe lack of awareness of Welfare Schemes such as Jan Dhan Yojana, Garib Kalyan Yojana, Kissan Samman Yojana, etc. in which citizens can avail Direct Benefit Transfers

Given the fact that there has been a tremendous influx of leniency from citizens across the country in terms of cash and kindness, volunteers associated with Indus Action's rapid response strategy have worked to connect donors and receivers. Due to control / lock-down in many parts of the country, free and easy movement is not always possible, although necessary police permission is taken and deep logistics arrangements ensure that the nearest donor is connected to the receiver; Be it for food, medicine or other essential supplies.

Indus Action’s mission of moving 1 million+ families irreversibly out of poverty in India by 2030 is supported by Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, Ernst and Young Foundation, Cisco, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Uber India and Obama Foundation, among others. This mission is driven forward by a full-time team of 55 public policy professionals across 19 States.