Background

Financial aid plays a crucial role in fostering social and economic equity, especially in a country like India, where approximately 25%(1) of the population belongs to marginalized and underprivileged communities. These communities often face systemic barriers that hinder their access to education, healthcare, and other essential services. Financial aid, in the form of scholarships and benefits, is vital for empowering these individuals, enabling them to break the cycle of poverty and contribute meaningfully to society.

Despite the significant allocation of resources, delivering financial aid effectively in India presents numerous challenges. As per central government budgetary utilization reports, the central government has spent over 15,000 crores(2) on scholarships in FY2023-24. Referring to multiple reports, more than INR 50,000 crores(3)(4)(5) are allocated annually as benefits to various communities through government and non-profit organizations. However, according to official reports from the Government of India, a significant percentage of the government scholarship budgets are not utilized, leading to a reduction in allocation of budgets towards social benefits in the following years. The allocation for minority schemes fell by 38% and allocation for post matric schemes fell by 58%.(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11) This underutilization is primarily due to several factors, including a lack of awareness among potential beneficiaries about available schemes, insufficient verified information about eligible recipients, and inefficient, redundant processes that delay the disbursement of funds.

In India, currently there are numerous portal and benefits that are managed by various government departments and CSR firms to handle applications for scholarships and other benefits. For example, a single government department might operate multiple portals for different schemes, such as the National Scholarship Portal for educational scholarships and another for healthcare benefits. This fragmented approach presents several challenges. Most of these solutions enable only unilateral discovery, meaning beneficiaries must actively search for schemes, often across multiple portals, to stay informed about different benefit schemes, timelines, and processes. This can be particularly cumbersome for individuals who may not have easy access to the internet or are not tech-savvy, which is the case with the majority of Indian households.

Moreover, the existence of multiple databases and registries, each storing beneficiary data and owned by different government entities, exacerbates the problem. These databases often do not communicate with each other, making it difficult to maintain up-to-date information and leading to a lack of ownership of verified data in a single place. As a result, beneficiaries frequently must submit documents and proof for identity and eligibility verification multiple times. This redundancy not only increases the administrative burden but also imposes significant costs on beneficiaries. These costs include application and processing charges for proof documents (such as income certificate, caste certificate, disability certificate etc.), transportation expenses, service fees to middlemen, and the opportunity cost of losing daily wages in case of adults while procuring necessary documents. A student from a rural or tribal area might have to travel to a city multiple times to submit various forms and proofs, incurring travel costs and losing valuable study time. This fragmented and inefficient system emphasizes the need for benefits delivery architecture that can enable easy discovery between beneficiaries and schemes, streamline the benefit delivery process, reduce redundancy, and ensure that beneficiaries can easily access the aid they are entitled to.