ARTH Kalpataru: A boost for the economic well-being of underserved families

ARTH Foundation’s holistic vision to support the household, as well as the entrepreneurial needs of micro-entrepreneurs, is gaining momentum in transforming the lives of under-resourced families. Technologically driven tools are the key enablers in this process of translating efforts into actions to benefit the end-user. Amongst all of these tools, the most demanded and appreciated is the flagship initiative- ARTH Kalpataru, which is a welfare-linkage program to connect underprivileged families to the respective government schemes.

Rakhi Rawat is supporting her husband, who works as daily-wage labor, by making ‘Dhoop-batti’ from home which is then sold in the market. Rakhi has been associated with ARTH for the last 4 years when she decided to contribute financially to save for the future of their four daughters.

Kalpataru is an ancient Sanskrit derivation that refers to a wish-fulfilling tree. ARTH’s Kalpataru is the welfare umbrella that further contains various routine welfare-driven programs in response to the social insecurities faced by the lesser privileged families, especially in the rural expanse. From our connect with these households, we have learned that due to unawareness and lack of exposure to informational sources, these families remain negligent of government-led benefits, among others. Thus, Kalpataru aims to provide hand-holding support to drive maximum exposure and impact towards entitlements that can help in strengthening household economics.

Following the underlying principle of driving linkages to the Centre and state government-supported benefits, ARTH Foundation also conducts routine ‘ARTH Sammelan’s’, or group training sessions to educate the customers about benefit schemes across social security, health, and insurance, food, and nutrition, domestic supplies, saving schemes for children, widow-pension, etc. The ‘SPM’ or social program management coordinators provide a fitment of these schemes to individual families and also provide assistance on registration and completion processes.

The approach of the ARTH Kalpataru welfare initiative

Since its inception, over 1500 households have been directly benefited through the offerings of ARTH Kalpataru and approx. 35000 applications have been filed under the qualifying schemes from the Data Bank. Few of the schemes that have been the most utilized by these families include the following:

· Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana: The accident-insurance scheme offers a risk cover of INR 2 lakhs and INR 1 lakhs for accidental death or full disability, and partial disability, respectively; through an annual premium of INR 12/-

· Pradhan Mantri Jan-Aushadhi Yojana: Under this scheme, the Government of India provides medicines at affordable prices through special centers known as the PM Bhartiya Janaushadhi Kendra. The scheme aims to reduce pocket expenses for the healthcare of underprivileged families.

· Widow Pension Yojana: The scheme provides financial support every month to widows belonging to lower-income households.

· Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana: A skill development initiative scheme of the Government of India for recognition and standardization of skills, the PMKVY offers recognition across various sectors of Retail, Apparel, BFSI, Agriculture, Telecom, Construction, Logistics, etc.

· Sukanya Samridhi Yojana: The savings scheme backed by the Government of India, encourages parents to build a fund for the future education and marriage expenses of their female child.

In addition to some of the above schemes, ARTH Kalpataru offers support on over 250 schemes and has successfully conducted over 200 Sakhee Sammelan’s to date.

Other interventions under ARTH Kalpataru include ARTH Vittiya Paathshala (Financial Literacy), ARTH Suraksha (COVID-relief initiatives), and ARTH Swasth Poshan Vatika (Nutritional Kitchen Garden), etc.

ARTH Foundation is a nonprofit group company of ARTH which aims to transform finance by offering easy and affordable financial and livelihood enhancing services to millions of underserved micro-entrepreneurs in India to drive inclusion in the true sense, with a special focus on women.

Deep and continuous connections with the customer and tech-driven solutions are the key enablers that offer us valuable insights into the health of households and enterprises. During such uncertain times, it is extremely crucial for organizations to provide last-mile linkages that can help in building the economics of local communities.