Raah-Sakhi

About the Project

राह-सखी was inspired by a simple question: how can a woman access an important public service when she is new to the internet, does not feel comfortable using English, and has no one nearby to guide her?

We focused on e-Shram, a government service that can be difficult to navigate for a first-time digital user. Our prototype offers a Hindi-first experience with voice and simple text guidance. It helps users find official e-Shram registration, Common Service Centre (CSC), and helpdesk routes. It does not collect sensitive information or claim to check eligibility or submit forms.

We built the project as a lightweight, mobile-friendly Progressive Web App. It supports Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam interface packs, with browser-based speech recognition and text-to-speech where available. For the demo, it uses a small set of fixed, source-backed answers and clear handoffs to official resources rather than a general-purpose chatbot.

One of our key learnings was that accessibility means more than translating words. A useful tool should make the next step clear, let people speak or type, recover gracefully when it does not understand, and be honest about what it can and cannot do.

The main challenges were supporting speech reliably across browsers and languages, keeping the interface simple, and checking that guidance matched official information. We also found conflicting age wording between official e-Shram pages, so the prototype avoids making eligibility decisions and directs users to official channels for confirmation. The regional-language packs still need review by fluent speakers before public use.

राह-सखी is a prototype, not a live government integration. Our goal is to make the first step easier while helping users stay in control of what they do next.

Built With

• built-with:-html
• css
• e-shram-official-resources
• javascript
• multilingual
• progressive-web-app-(pwa)
• web-speech-api