PRAGATI

Inspiration

I’ve seen this struggle up close with my own grandparents in our village. Every time their pension or NREGA wages were due, they would walk nearly 8–10 kilometres to the nearest bank or CSC, wait in line for hours, and spend ₹40–₹80 on travel—only to ask one simple question: “Has my money come?” Many times, the answer was no, and they would return home tired, only to make the same trip again a few days later. Over a month, these repeated journeys could cost more than ₹1300, not counting the daily wages lost. For women, elderly pensioners, and daily-wage earners like my grandparents, this wasn’t just about money—it was about dignity, time, and the anxiety of never knowing when help had arrived. And all of this comes down to one root cause: there is still no simple, instant, and local way for them to verify when their welfare payments reach their accounts. Who suffers – 134.17 million rural/semi-urban Indians who depend on NREGA wages, PM-Kisan, pensions, or DBT subsidies that land in Jan-Dhan / CSP accounts. What hurts – Every credit cycle they travel 6–12 km and queue 2–4 hours at a Common Service Centre, bank branch or ATM only to ask one question: “Has my money arrived?”. Economic & social cost – ₹40–₹80 in fuel; repeated 2–3× a month, which causes them to lose around ₹1300 rupees per month purely on travel fees. This is not including the money lost from daily wages. Women, elderly and daily-wage earners are worst hit. Root cause – No instant, verifiable, local channel to query account balance or last credit entry; smartphone & data penetration still patchy.

What it does

PRAGATI brings atomic and autonomous agents in existing systems like SMS which in return can make few everyday problems faced by rural people vanish. Problems like Financial status, Withdrawal, language barriers. Inefficiency in these process are hindrance in the growth of the country.

What we learned

Developing PRAGATI taught us the power of edge AI for inclusive tech, showing how simple innovations can scale to crores by aligning with initiatives like Digital India. It is not always about making a new invention everytime. Sometimes it is about the blend of multiple technologies. There are still many small and invisible issues present in India which can be solved by niche services like PRAGATI which can be solved by the Digital India.

What's next for PRAGATI

Beyond the hackathon, PRAGATI can grow into a nationwide platform for rural financial empowerment. Its agentic AI capabilities can be expanded to deliver proactive alerts, enable grievance filing through voice commands, and integrate with additional schemes such as NSAP pensions—potentially reaching 23.59 crore rural DBT beneficiaries. Advanced features like predictive analytics for payment delays, powered by ML models, can further reduce verification attempts by 50% and strengthen user trust. For deployment, partnerships with government bodies and financial institutions will be key, supported by NGOs for on-ground testing. Scaling can be achieved through public schemes, CSR funding, and subscription models with banks, enabling widespread access to kiosks and reducing pressure on traditional branches. To scale effectively, collaboration with IndiaAI (MeitY) can provide access to national datasets for multilingual TTS model training. Partnerships with IBM can support edge computing optimization, AI toolkits (Granite and Watson),. These collaborations will accelerate PRAGATI’s transition from prototype to large-scale deployment, delivering lasting impact for crores in underserved communities.