Digitally empowering communities in India with Cisco and Indus Action

[ad_1] This weblog publish is being visitor written by Shreya Arora on Cisco’s India Money Grant group, the place she helps the rollout and governance of CSR applications throughout India. Drawing on seven years of expertise in program improvement and fundraising, Shreya brings a holistic view of the nonprofit world and a robust want 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, desires usually collide with obstacles. For tens of millions of households, social welfare applications maintain the promise of a brighter future; nonetheless, the pathways to those advantages are sometimes managed by older, lower-tech methods that may be complicated to navigate. In 2018, Cisco partnered with Indus Motion, an India-based non-profit, to handle this problem, digitally reworking important social safety methods to be extra citizen-friendly and efficient.

By way of 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 assist the implementation of Part 12(1)(c) of India’s Proper to Training (RTE) Act. This coverage mandates that 25% of seats in personal, unaided colleges be reserved for kids from economically deprived sections and teams.

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-478004 size-medium" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-0612-edited-300x216.jpg" alt="Woman sitting with a small child and talking" width="300" height="216" srcset="https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-0612-edited-300x216.jpg 300w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-0612-edited-1024x737.jpg 1024w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-0612-edited-768x553.jpg 768w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-0612-edited-1536x1106.jpg 1536w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-0612-edited-2048x1475.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px"/> Serving to youngsters entry high quality schooling through a tech-enabled platform. With Cisco’s assist, Indus Motion developed an Training-Administration Data System (EdMIS), an modern 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 college and scholar registrations to utility lotteries, reimbursements, and scholar monitoring, EdMIS has simplified complicated administrative workflows and ensured transparency throughout the ecosystem.

Households like Somesh’s, whose son gained admission to a personal college underneath RTE, reside proof of the transformative energy of this initiative. “With out this provision, enrolling our baby in a personal college would have been practically not possible,” Somesh’s mom shared. “This coverage helps households like ours. We hope it continues to assist others like us sooner or later.”

Indus Motion’s flagship mission wasn’t nearly fast 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 assist pregnant and first-time moms underneath 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 have been working and needed to expertise a wage loss because of the being pregnant.

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-478006" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-0634-edited-300x244.jpg" alt="Worker helping a mother with three small children" width="500" height="406" srcset="https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-0634-edited-300x244.jpg 300w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-0634-edited-1024x832.jpg 1024w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-0634-edited-768x624.jpg 768w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-0634-edited-1536x1248.jpg 1536w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-0634-edited-2048x1663.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px"/> Maternal assist efforts have boosted health-seeking behaviors amongst younger moms who would possibly in any other case go with out important care. Impressed by the EdMIS use case, a dashboard and hotline have 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 acquired all three instalments of the money profit, and the mission 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—comparable to antenatal and prenatal check-ups.

Safeguarding labor welfare <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-478114" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-300x190.png" alt="Two women talking together while one on the left takes notes" width="350" height="222" srcset="https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-300x190.png 300w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-1024x650.png 1024w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-768x487.png 768w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-1536x975.png 1536w, https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images-new/ciscoblogs/1/2025/09/Indus-Action-Blog-Image-2048x1300.png 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px"/> Households obtain skilled help in navigating important social welfare applications In 2025, Cisco and Indus Motion renewed their partnership with a daring new focus: enhancing welfare for staff registered underneath the Constructing and Different Building Employees Welfare Board (BOCWWB). Leveraging the teachings discovered from RTE implementation, the companions purpose to deploy know-how to simplify entry to advantages, deal with grievances, and improve governance for staff 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’ issues, Indus Motion has not solely resolved particular person instances but additionally 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 Function, can dismantle obstacles, 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 will create higher social safety methods that work for everybody.