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India's first identity and financial inclusion camp for the homeless



Continuing with my endeavor to share the experiences of my journey while leading the pilot program for the National Program for the Urban Homeless; I would like to share the wonderful experience when the UID chairman; Mr. Nandan Nilenkani; who is also a cabinet minister rank official, visited  the enrollment site and personally endorsed the effort to bring identity, financial inclusion, insurance and pension to the most deprived sections of the urban poor. This as a first to build inclusive cities as India aspires towards becoming a developed nation.

The concept: While many government schemes exist to provide free medical care, subsidized food grains, pensions and medical insurance to the poor; access to these schemes is limited due to lack of identity. Introducer based identity is a first of its kind endeavor where based on a trusted introducer who has worked with the homeless and urban poor communities (in this case myself); Identity is provided without documentation.

BUT just an identity is not enough as most schemes are run in the form of payouts which need bank accounts. Hence we worked with a government bank; Union Bank of India; to set up a unique banking correspondent based service where bank accounts are opened based on the UID and one of the educated homeless themselves will become a banking correspondent who will be trained by the bank for 2-3 weeks and then will be positioned at the shelters where he will undertake all banking transactions like savings, deposits, withdrawals, remittance etc. right at the shelter; earning a small commission per transaction. The model is a win-win for everyone as  the cost per transaction is very low for the homeless when compared with the conveyance cost and hassle of traveling to the bank and they get banking services at their doorstep. In addition some homeless also get an employment in the process. This for me is a perfect solution as even if we open accounts in banks, the homeless will never be allowed to enter the bank branches and the whole effort will come to naught.

Now identity and financial inclusion done, the next step is to include the homeless in the pension and the insurance schemes of the government and link them to direct remittance in their bank accounts to avoid any corruption.

Would love to hear your suggestions about the process, I am trying to define in my own imperfect ways.

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