4 Social enterprises that make money & do good

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Pranbihanga Borpuzari, Economictimes.com 
Image: World Bank India 
The challenge for India is to attain high growth and also to make sure it is inclusive. This inclusion cannot be merely about income but also about the services that people need – healthcare, financial services, education, water, and sanitation amongst others. 
Social entrepreneurs fill key gaps in providing basic services and goods to poor. Recently the World Bank under its Development Marketplace initiative recognized 12 social enterprises for their exemplary work in the states of Assam, Mizoram, and Meghalaya and gave out grants ranging from $150,000 each to US$25,000 each. 
Development Marketplace is a competitive small grants program that identifies and funds innovative, development projects with a high potential for social impact. 
We feature four such awardees focused on connecting the underserved base-of-the-pyramid population and communities in the North –East of India.

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ERC Eye Care

In Pic: Dr Parveez Ubed training vision assistants. 
Name – ERC Eye Care 
Name of Founder – Dr Parveez Ubed 
Revenues – NA 
Where it operates – Presently ERC operates in Upper Assam and parts of Nagaland. 
Type of business – For profit 
Headcount – 24 full time and 50 part-time women field workers. 
What it offers – ERC offers accessible, affordable and inclusive “on demand” eye care to the rural population of North- East. It has a network of rural Vision Centers and mobile unit, which is connected to city based “hub” hospitals (Hub & Spoke model). Ennovent Impact Investment Holding and Ankur Capital invested an undisclosed late last year. Beyond Capital Fund and angel investor Sadeesh Raghavan also participated in the round.

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How the grant will be utilized

In Pic: Dr Parveez Ubed treating patients ERC has a low consultation fee of about Rs 60 ($1) and optical frames retail for as low as Rs 100-120 ($2). It has other facilities like diagnostic tests and soon going to start its surgical services at affordable rates. 
About 10 million people suffer from visual impairments in the north-east of India. Less than 25 percent of them have access to eye-care facilities. A majority of these issues are easily treatable. There is a high incidence of blindness in the Northeastern and World Health Organization states 18.8 percent of Indians suffering from cataracts belong to Assam. 
While the hub hospitals are expected to take care of all problems related to eyes, the Vision centers recruit, train and pay local women amongst other Optometrists to diagnose, prescribe medicines, ensure quality eye care and conduct basic screening of patients to be treated by the “hub” hospital. 
How the grant will be utilized – ERC will use the grant money utilized for (i) capacity building of the organization (ii) starting its first hub hospital and (iii) getting into more partnerships.

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Seven Sisters Development Assistance

In Pic: SEsta’s agriculture programme to increase productivity of paddy targets women 
Name – Seven Sisters Development Assistance (SeSTA) 
Name of Founder(s) – Aswini Bhattacharjya, Parag Boruah 
Revenues: NA
Where it operates: Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura 
Type of business – Not for profit 
Headcount – 20 
What it offers: SeSTA believes that engagement of well educated meaningful people at grassroots is most crucial for development of poor and marginalized communities. SeSTA recruits young professionals and grooms them as development professionals through its one year in-house training programme. 
SeSTA mobilizes women from poor and marginalized communities in the form of SHG, village level organizations and block level SHG Federations and builds their capabilities around livelihood (agriculture, livestock and skill development) so that they can enhance their income.

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How the grant will be utilized

In Pic: Mobilizing women from poor and marginalized communities in the form of SHG 
Social transformation through working with vulnerable section of the society particularly women is the major focus of its livelihood programme. In agriculture, SeSTA worked with about 8685 families till 2013 and last year another 1500 families came under its agriculture programme. 
Major activities under agriculture programme include increasing productivity of paddy by promoting System of Rice Cultivation (SRI), promote maize as a cash crop in the area, promotion of improved vegetable cultivation, promotion of organic agriculture. 
In SRI programme, SeSTA is able to increase the productivity of paddy by 1.6-2 times compared to what farmers got through their traditional system. Improved method of pig rearing is one of the new programmes of SeSTA. 
How the grant will be utilized: SeSTA received Capacity Building Grant of $ 25,000 from WB for the DM Awards 2014. This grant will be utilized for i) building systems and processes, HR and management group of SeSTA and (ii) building capabilities of women SHG leaders to eradicate poverty and malnourishment in selected areas.

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SAS Poorna Arogya Healthcare Pvt Ltd

In Pic: SAS Poorna Arogya Healthcare founder Dr Arjun Sachidanand 
Name of the Firm – SAS Poorna Arogya Healthcare Pvt Ltd (SAS-PAP) 
Name of Founder (s) - Dr Arjun Sachidanand 
Revenues – NA 
Where it operates – Karnataka 
Type of business – For Profit 
Headcount – 35 
What it offers - SAS-PAP is a community based healthcare program to provide low cost healthcare services to urban and rural poor. The program is designed and being implemented by SAS Poorna Arogya Healthcare in collaboration with NGOs/MFIs and network of partner hospitals. 
SAS-PAP has been running a successful, innovative, and self sustaining affordable healthcare model in the state of Karnataka form 2010. Till date it has 431,258 members among whom 263,124 are women, 42,681 are children and 125,453 are men. Its primary focus is to provide healthcare to women.

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How the grant will be utilized

In Pic: SAS Poorna Arogya team at the Development Marketplace summit 
SAS Poorna Arogya is a universal health benefit program aimed to provide access to low cost and quality healthcare to the needy. Members (SUKHIs) get outpatient consultancy for a nominal Rs 25 ($ 0.41) per visit throughout the year. For membership the contribution is Rs 250 ($ 4.15) per member per year. 
Members get cashless inpatient treatment up to Rs 6000 ($100) per year in recognized partner hospitals. For eg If 5 members in a family are registered they can avail treatment up to Rs 30,000 ($ 500) on floater basis. A maximum of 10 members from one family can enroll. 
Started in 2010, with a modest membership of 5000 members the program already has 4,00,000+ members and over 100+ network hospitals and is growing rapidly. Till date it has dispersed over Rs 5 crore for In Patient treatments. 
How the grant will be utilized – The seed capital from the grant will be utilized to set up operations and replicate the program in the states of Assam, Mizoram and Meghalaya to provide access to affordable, ethical and quality healthcare to the urban and rural poor in the three target states.

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BASIX Sub-K iTransactions Ltd

In Pic: Sub-K MD D Sattaiah and VP Business Development Sasidhar Thumuluri receiving the India Development Market Place 2014 Award from Onno Ruhl, Country Director for India World Bank. 
Name of the Firm – BASIX Sub-K iTransactions Ltd 
Name of Founder - Vijay Mahajan 
Revenues – Rs 6 Crore in FY 13 – 14 
Where it operates – Except Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal, Kerala and Goa, Basix operates in 24 states across the country. 
Type of business – For profit 
Headcount – 360 
What it offers – Basix is a business correspondence service for banks and other service providers. It enables last mile delivery of banking and non-banking services by leveraging local entrepreneurship and mobile or broadband connectivity. It appoints local retailers to serve as micro-franchisees in villages and sub-urban locations, equips them with technology and trains them to offer banking services to the unbanked.

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How the grant will be utilized

In Pic: Account holders doing transactions at Sub K BC outlet 
Key differentiator of Sub-K is the technology it uses and extensive field execution capability, especially in rural areas. Its technology is fully integrated with Core Banking Solution (CBS) of multiple banks and compliant to all regulatory requirements. It is also quite flexible to be able to provide a range of servicesincluding banking and non-banking. 
Basix group's two decades of work in delivering financial and livelihood services in 25,000 villages touched more than two million households. Its financial services include Savings, Micro-Pensions, Micro-insurance, NREGA and other Government payments, Money Transfer, Micro-Credit, Utility Payments, Travel Reservations and Mobile Top-ups through a Business Correspondent model. 
How the grant will be utilized – For expanding the branchless banking in Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram and proving the viability of business model in NE India.

4 Social enterprises that make money & do good

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