Blog

How India is securing its G2P beneficiaries from COVID-19 – Lessons for other countries to create a G2P delivery platform

Posted on by MSC

As of May 1, about 159 countries have planned, introduced or adapted 752 social protection measures in response to COVID-19. 244 of such measures, representing one-third (32.4%) of total COVID-related social protection programs, are cash transfer programs. This includes both pre-existing and new programs.

India was among the first few countries to announce a social protection package of USD 24 billion at the federal level. State governments have announced, and are still announcing, additional measures. To our last count, this amount is around USD 14 billion. Of the USD 24 billion package, about USD 10 billion is for cash transfer and remaining is for in-kind support, primarily food grains. Under the cash transfer package, INR 500 (USD 7) will be transferred to the bank accounts of 200 million women every month for three months. 87 million farmers will get advance payment of INR 2000 (USD 28) under a pre-existing income support program called PM-Kisan. 30 million poor senior citizen, widows and disabled will get ex-gratia of INR 1000 (USD 14) under a pre-existing pension program called National Social Assistance Program (NSAP). 80 million poor women will get advance payment of about INR 784 (USD 11) to buy LPG for household cooking for the next three months[1]. In addition, 800 million beneficiaries will get three months of food grain free of cost through an  extensive network of public distribution system that already delivers food grains to these beneficiaries every month at a highly subsidized cost.

The value of Indian federal government’s social assistance package is almost half of the combined package of all middle income countries (MICs). But what is surprising is the speed at which the cash component of this package reached the beneficiaries. About 400 million G2P payment transactions were processed by the Indian federal government within of this announcement. Challenges such as payment transaction failure and onboarding new people, who are falling into poverty due to this pandemic, continue. But nonetheless this is a remarkable feat that many other countries, developing and developed, aspire to. Over the last few years there has been an increased interest among many countries to learn from India’s experience in digitizing its G2P program. The following figure illustrates various components of the ecosystem that must be considered.

MIS Program Infrastructure

MIS Program Infrastructure

1.Digital identity and authentication infrastructure

A digital identity system can help to uniquely identify and enrol people into a G2P program. Countries have choices depending on whether they already have an existing digital identity database, are creating a new one, or can repurpose an existing database for this purpose.

A digital identity system can also serve as an authentication system that can reduce the cost of last mile authentication infrastructure and overall transaction cost.

2.Public finance management infrastructure

A digital public finance management system can increase the observability, efficiency and targeting of G2P payments by several fold. However, it is difficult to create and manage. Volume and value of G2P payments will also play and important role in deciding whether one should have a centralized system to manage G2P payment or a program specific financial management system is sufficient.

3.Banking and payment infrastructure

Penetration of banking and payment infrastructure is key to facilitate G2P payments. There are three key elements to this – access to bank/mobile wallet account to g2P beneficiaries, integration of backend payment system and last mile access points for transactions.

4.Program infrastructure/MIS

A digital program database is an important requirement for running a G2P program. The level of automation of this database can vary and determines the efficiency of the system. Designers of program database have many design choices depending on the requirement and budget.

Every country’s journey to create a digital system that brings in efficiency, accuracy and speed to G2P payments will be unique depending on its current situation, aspiration, budgets, legal and regulatory requirements and many other conditions. India offers valuable lessons for other countries to learn and adapt these learnings to create its own roadmap.

Digital governance Ideas and lessons from India

Posted on by MSC

Efforts against digital governance or e-governance started way back in 2000’s in India. Digital governance or e-Governance is the use of information and communication technology by the government to provide the quality information and services to country’s ecosystem in an efficient, cost-effective, and convenient manner bringing transparency and accountability in government functioning. Digital governance includes services and processes in any interaction between Government-to-government (G2G), Government-to-person (G2P), and Government-to-business (G2B). The digital infrastructure created over more than a decade helped the government support the citizens by transferring USD 7 billion benefitting more than 200 million households in the country during COVID 19 crisis.

Public Financial Management System Ideas and lessons from India

Posted on by MSC

Indian government manages its public finance using an application called Public Financial Management System (PFMS). It is used for payment, accounting, and reconciliation of government transactions. During the lockdown period (March 2020 till 17th April 2020), government-supported more than 200 million households by transferring cash amounting to USD 7 billion directly to their bank accounts. All these transactions were managed in PFMS.

Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) Ideas and lessons from India

Posted on by MSC

One of the flagship schemes of the current government in India is Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY). It was launched as a national mission on financial inclusion in 2014 with an aim to provide access to affordable financial services to all. It played a critical role in managing COVID 19 crisis in India and supporting the weaker sections of the society. The government was able to provide cash support 198.6 million which amounted to INR 99.3 billion (as on 13th April, 2020). To date, more than 381 million accounts have been opened under PMJDY scheme with around 470 million insurance beneficiaries and 19 million pension beneficiaries.

An insight into the case fatality rate and its association with preventive measures taken by government in response to Covid-19

Posted on by MSC

These projections have validated the necessity of these preventive measures. Similarly, the available data around fatalities, infections and tests conducted provide useful insights into the efficacy of preventive measures and the fallacies around stand-alone, exhaustive testing strategies.

Based on the data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, GoI, we looked into the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) across 17 Indian states with more than 100 active cases. The aim was to explore the relationship between CFR and the preventive measures taken by respective state governments as a response to Covid-19. Apart from individual epidemiological factors, there could be various cofactors for CFR like the medical infrastructure and facilities, availability of frontline health workers, government preparedness & response and testing rates which helps in diagnosing the cases early and take essential measures. Using the 2011 census data, we calculated the number of tests done per million population in a state. This we call as tests per million.  The other data-point that we used is the percentage of positive cases emerging from the tested sample. This we call as infection rate.

COVID19- Cases, infection and tests rate graph

COVID19- Cases, infection and tests rate graph

Fig1: Case fatality rate, Infection rate – COVID infections/tested samples, Total tests per million population

Among the states, Madhya Pradesh (5.22), Gujarat (4.87) and Maharashtra (4.36) have the highest CFRs while Bihar (0.49), Odisha (0.78) and Kerala (0.80) are at the opposite end of spectrum.

In Madhya Pradesh, more than 60% of the cases and approximately 67% of the state’s deaths can be traced to the Indore-Ujjain corridor. This rules out individual epidemiological factors and suggests that better quarantine, testing and enforcement of lockdown protocols could have led to early detection and prevention of fatalities. Madhya Pradesh also has the highest infection rate at 8.09% and a testing strategy (575 tests per million) that is well below the 17 state average (825). A high CFR, high infection rates and low tests per million indicate that a lot more needs to be done to flatten the curve.

Odisha, on the other hand, has the second lowest CFR at 0.78, after Bihar (0.49). It also has the lowest infection rate at 0.40% compared to the 17 state average (3.76%). After the first COVID positive case was found in Odisha, the state was able to ramp up its social distancing and quarantining policies along with ramping up of testing protocols. The public health measures taken by the state has led to flattening the disease progression curve.

Maharashtra and Delhi show how exhaustive testing strategies will not work without effective complementary preventive measures. Maharashtra, at 1210 tests per million, is well above the India average (825) and has conducted the highest number of RT-PCR tests (130,000+) in absolute terms.  In spite of this, the state has a high infection rate (7.31%) and CFR (4.36). Similarly, Delhi (2800 tests per million) having conducted more than 3 times the national testing average, has the second highest infection rate (7.93%). Both the states need to take more measures to flatten the curve. Anecdotal data and news reports suggest the need for strengthened and coordinated enforcement of preventive measures in these states.

As we prepare a graded exit strategy from the lockdown, it becomes evident that the preventive measures implemented in India have been largely effective in controlling the pandemic. Any exit plan must incorporate these learnings to tide over the epidemic in our country.

The blog was also published on ET Healthworld.com on 6th of May, 2020

GUVI: Bridging the language divide in learning technical skills

Posted on by MSC

This blog is about a startup under the Financial Inclusion Lab accelerator program, which is supported by some of the largest philanthropic organizations across the world – Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, J.P. Morgan, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, MetLife Foundation and Omidyar Network.

The light bulb moment

Approximately 80% of computers, electronics, or allied engineering graduates are not fit to hire. Hence, it comes as no surprise that 73% of the recruiters are not able to secure the talent they require. 

GUVI is an integrated EduTech platform that provides technical skills in local languages with end-to-end personalized support throughout the process of learning to recruitment. Arun Prakash, S.P. Balamurugan, and Sridevi founded the platform. While working together at PayPal, they observed a huge gap in the technological skills of fresh graduates in India, especially in computer programming. According to recent reports,

What started in 2014 as a YouTube channel to share technical knowledge has rapidly evolved into one of the biggest online EduTech platforms in South India.

“I remember posting a short YouTube video on the basics of programming in C/C++ in the local language—a mix of Tamil and English. That video became quite popular quickly!” Arun, the co-founder of GUVI, noted in one of the boot camp events of the Financial Inclusion (FI) lab. 

“That was a light bulb moment for us. We suddenly realized the huge opportunity to bridge this skilling gap through the creation of an integrated learning and recruitment platform to cater to the talented but unskilled technical graduates from tier II and III cities,” he continued.

Figure 1: The co-founders of GUVI- Arun Prakash, SP Balamurgan, and Sridevi (L-R)

The unique pitch

GUVI’s mission is to make skilling an easy, simple, and intuitive process by bridging the gap between skilling and recruitment. On this platform, students can learn in their local languages through bite-sized videos, practice coding, test their skills, and compare their progress against their peers. GUVI attempts to make learning fun for its students through a gamified platform to practice coding, which awards “merit badges” to students who complete a course successfully. It also conducts periodic assessments and coding contests and rewards the top performers. The entire learning history of a student is maintained as part of their GUVI profile, which they can share with potential and current employers.

GUVI works on two models—an online learning platform that has been described briefly in the “unique pitch” section and an offline model that includes zen classes, which is a special classroom coaching model. As part of zen classes, GUVI handpicks students, trains them through industry experts, and finally places them with potential recruiters. Thus far, GUVI has been able to secure placements for all of its four zen class batches. 

Skilling learners in the times of Covid-19

That Guvi’s model  is  relevant and popular with learners can be gauged by the fact that as on date (26th April, 2020), 62,000 new learners have joined the platform to upskill themselves since India went into a country-wide lockdown on 21st March, 2020. This led to a significant jump from 250,000 to 312,000  learners that are now registered on Guvi’s platform since the pre-lockdown period. Now on an average, a learner spends 20 times more learning hours per week compared to the time they spent during the pre-March 2020 period. Testament to its success is the fact that GUVI raised in April 2020 INR 6 crore in a pre-series A round of funding from Education Catalyst Fund.

Impact on the LMI segment

In India, students from tier II and III cities face the following challenges: 

  • They are not exposed to quality technical education in schools and colleges because quality instructors in this domain are usually found in tier I cities where they are paid better
  • They struggle to read, understand, and write in English, which is the common medium of teaching technical courses and coding languages. 

Unable to overcome these challenges, such students find it difficult to acquire the requisite skills to attain appropriate jobs. 

GUVI, through its low-priced, local language platform and on-demand, simplified computer programming courses, has up-skilled more than 150,000 students, mostly from the LMI segment, and helped them be recruited in respectable technology firms.

The roadblocks

Support provided by the Financial Inclusion lab

GUVI was selected for the Financial Inclusion Lab in its second cohort in March 2019, as part of which the start-up went through boot camps, diagnostic sessions, and clinic sessions with that provided bespoke technical assistance to achieve the following objectives:

  • Understand the nuances of the fresher recruitment ecosystem of North India. This also included opportunities and market sizing of the business opportunities of GUVI with small, medium, and large technology enterprises and training and placement consultancies;
  • Develop a cost-effective go-to-market (GTM) strategy by identifying the product-market fit for GUVI from among the technology and placement companies explored earlier; and
  • Identify any overlooked skills to help GUVI differentiate itself from its competitors.

While the support of the Financial inclusion Lab continues, GUVI has already been able to achieve the following milestones:

  • Partnerships with its most relevant enterprise segment—small and medium-sized technology firms in the north;
  • Involved in strategic partnership discussions with prestigious IT industry associations such as NASSCOM, which has a pan-India presence and influence; and
  • Built and incorporated soft-skill training modules in its platform to augment the employability of its trainees.

As a result, GUVI witnessed an improvement in the number of recruiters who joined its platform alongside an increase in the success rate of placement of its students or trainees, both in North and South India.

Skilling learners in the times of Covid-19

GUVI has become more relevant and popular for learners. Now, a learner spends, on an average, 20 times more hours per week as compared to time spent during the pre-March 2020 period.

Witnessing the immense success in terms of the number of learners on the platform, GUVI has also re-invented it’s B2B2C business model, in which it offers its courses and platform to engineering colleges completely online, due to broader market situation.  GUVI has also proactively moved its Zen classes, one of the most popular and successful ones, completely online because of the lockdown and social distancing norms.

GUVI firmly believes that they can overcome the barriers of the background, region, situation, or financial status to skill any willing learner.

This blog post is part of a series that covers promising FinTechs that are making a difference to underserved communities. These start-ups receive support from the Financial Inclusion Lab accelerator program. The Lab is a part of CIIE.CO’s Bharat Inclusion Initiative and is co-powered by MSC. #TechForAll, #BuildingForBharat