GDi has partnered with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), Ministry of Rural Development to support the National Scale-up of the “LokOS” ecosystem. LokOS (standing for Lok, i.e. “Community” and OS i.e. “Operating System”) is a visionary attempt by the MoRD for end-to-end digitization of the Self Help Group (SHG) network in India to capture the profile of Community Based Organisations (CBOs), their members and all financial transactions across the ecosystem (from SHG to national level).

The core objectives behind this initiative are to bring in a layer of digitisation into the ecosystem, enabling access to a wide variety of digital public goods for CBOs and their members; improve financial inclusion for CBOs and their members, providing them better access to the formal economy; bring in efficiency in administration of CBOs by creating a data-backed, decision support system; and provide better access to CBOs and members to a host of government and non-government schemes and services through an integrated ecosystem of downline applications.

As part of this engagement, GDi is setting up a Unit to manage the ecosystem of partners with KPIs across different levels to ensure on-time execution of the overall project and developing a network of government and private partners to provide a host of schemes and services to SHGs and their members.

GDi is working with the Govt. of Delhi to help improve air quality in Delhi/NCR region. Over the past year, we have been working with the Delhi Pollution Control Committee to operationalise a first-in-India real-time source apportionment study.

This study will help government agencies and the public understand the true sources (and their locations) of Delhi’s PM 2.5 pollution on an hourly basis. A consortium of IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Delhi, TERI, and IISER-Mohali is doing the study. IIT-Kanpur is the overall project coordinator. The study has been generating trial data streams since November 2022.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal recently reviewed the progress of the study, and welcomed some of the insights that have been generated.

GDi’s has enabled this study in two ways. First, GDi is playing the role of a troubleshooter, removing bottlenecks in implementation, communication, or documentation. Second, GDi is contributing to the study technically, by helping the consortium patterns obtain relevant datasets.

This study, which is a first in India, will be a significant step in the fight for cleaner air in Delhi. GDi is proud to be a part of this initiative!