We wish to replicate as a national movement

From a management professional to becoming a social entrepreneur, Rajiv Khandelwal, executive director of Aajeevika, an organisation providing services to migrant workers, is a thrilled man after he won the Social Entrepreneur of the Year India 2010 award. In an interview with Yogima Seth Sharma at the World Economic Forum, he speaks of his vision and ideas behind the setting up of this NGO six years ago. Excerpts:



How did the idea of helping migrant workers originate?

Southern Rajasthan is a hub for people who were migrating but returning back home with neither savings nor skills. We decided to set up an organisation that provides state identity, skilled training and placement, legal aid and counseling and financial services to these migrants so that they feel more empowered.

How do you measure your success considering that you are still catering to a very small part of the 100 million migrants in the country?

This award is certainly a small recognition of the success of my endeavour. In real sense, we've been successful in bringing up the issue of skilled migrant workers to be recognised by people at all levels. Secondly, we've worked out a functioning model that can be replicated across the country to provide services to migrant workers. Today, we have 50,000 registered migrant workers out of an estimated 8 lakh migrant workers in Rajasthan.

What is your business model?

Aajeevika is a non-profit organisation, driven by grants. However, onefourth of the total training cost, which is Rs 5,000, is borne by the trainee and we also make money by providing identity cards to these migrant workers.

How do you plan to expand operations?

Currently, we have migrant workers coming from Udaipur, Rajsamand and Dungarpur tribal districts of Rajasthan to cater to demand in Ahmedabad, Surat, Eidar and Jaipur. We plan to expand organically by tieing up with similar organisations in other parts of India and also expand our services horizon to bring more and more workers into our fold.



Where would you like to see Aajeevika 10 years down the line?

Our model should get replicated across the country as a national movement for the benefit of informal workers in India. We do not have the bandwidth to go national ourselves and hope that several similar organisations will work together to make it happen.