Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) was launched on 25th December 2000 to improve rural connectivity across India. However, there are various challenges in construction delays, cost overruns, and under-utilization of funds. MSC’s advisory support on smart solutions seeks to offer better ways and means to improve scheme delivery and capacity on the ground, particularly in the context of physical and financial management of the project. MSC supports the National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (NRIDA), which is responsible for managing and monitoring the flagship program to implement a new range of emerging IT solutions. The project intended to create transparency across the system by enabling key decision-makers to have better observability of data from the sites, traceability of fund flow, and keep a tab on the overall scheme performance.
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MSC’s work with National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency
MSC undertook desk-based research to assess the maturity levels of four African countries—Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, and South Sudan, to make biometric-enabled digital payments to polio campaign workers during outbreaks. For this, MSC used its in-house Digital Readiness Assessment (DRA) framework. Critical pillars in the framework include government and policy readiness, infrastructure, and program readiness.
MSC used a subset of the DRA—infrastructure readiness, including digital database and ID, payments system, cash-in/cash-out (CICO) agent network, and digital ecosystem. Program readiness implies the degree to which beneficiaries’ digital database and program design and delivery are ready.
Based on the assessment, MSC made recommendations for three of the five phases of the program life-cycle—enrolment, proof of work, and making payments. A robust digital payment system will enable the governments and key stakeholders to adopt quick, convenient, reliable, and effective methods to pay frontline health workers who spread out to immunize children and families during outbreaks.
Voices of India’s MSME is a first-of-its-kind effort that deep dives into the financial lives of MSMEs, with a focus on the informal, non-agri segment across India. Through this study, we will focus on the policy environment, market environment, access to finance, digitization, business management, and gender balance in entrepreneurship. The study aims to aid policymakers, financial institutions, industry bodies, and multilateral agencies in more informed decision-making.
The Indian MSME eco-system has been a silent core that lacked a high-quality data system that captured MSME pain points, and financial and operational health. This data becomes effective if it can be channelized into key feedback loops for necessary industry action and policy interventions.
Commissioned by Omidyar Network India and in partnership with the World Bank, MSC is putting up a pioneering effort to bridge the data gap in the informal enterprise sector in India. This effort, known as the “Voices of India’s MSMEs – informal enterprises“, will come up with various reports, technical notes, and interactive data dashboards to provide a credible and usable data source on informal enterprises that all the stakeholders can use to support the sector. One major output of this initiative will be the “State of India’s Informal Sector Report“.
A vital component of this study is the Financial Diaries-based research on informal enterprises to develop a nuanced understanding of the financial practices and behaviors of the informal enterprises in India. We also cover the non-financial aspects like the needs and desires of the entrepreneurs. This nuanced data source, coupled with the data from the Informal Enterprises Survey of the World Bank, will form the base of the data source that we are creating.
Stay tuned to catch the insights as we deliver technical notes, blogs, State of the Sector report, and much more!
MSC launched the Agent Network Accelerator (ANA) project to help increase the pace of financial inclusion by helping FSPs in eight Gates Foundation focus countries to build and grow their agency channel. The flagship project resulted from a multi-stakeholder partnership involving donors, investors, and financial service providers (FSPs). The ANA involved research, training, and technical assistance to advance agent network operations. The Helix Institute of Digital Finance, set up under the project, has become a premier research and training organization for financial services agents. It runs the ANA course that equips industry leaders with effective strategies and powerful tools to build, manage, and grow agent networks across a broad geography.
MSC helped set up a “Financial Inclusion Lab” to identify, mentor, and bring to scale early-stage FinTech startups. These startups address the issues that underserved communities face through innovative and technology-enabled solutions. So far, the Lab has supported more than 40 startups, leading to an impact on 1 million-plus customers and 1,000+ MSMEs. Four major social investors fund the initiative with committed funding of USD 9.5 million. The project highlights MSC’s ability to structure and implement multi-stakeholder projects to achieve a developmental outcome—especially those involving investors and service providers (startups).
MSC designed a multi-year program with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Government of Bihar to strengthen value chain partnerships and create sustainable business models in the state. Our focus was specifically on collaborating with a range of public and private sector institutions including agri-tech and fintech innovators to drive high-impact interventions across the three core focus areas: (a) agricultural market systems, (b) livestock systems, and (c) data systems. The project was designed to increase farmers’ income through an improved supply chain and better access to digital services. It helped enhance the incomes of 10,000+ farmers in the state by using interventions designed by MSC to reduce the impact of seasonal price and production volatility and protect farmers’ livelihoods