Author: Smile Foundation

India’s labour market does not resemble the diagrams often used to describe it. It is not neatly divided into formal and informal sectors, nor does it progress along predictable ladders from training to employment. Instead, it is mobile, fragmented and deeply shaped by proximity—to worksites, markets and opportunity.

More than 90 percent of India’s workforce operates in informal settings. These workers build homes, paint walls, lay tiles, wire buildings and keep cities functional. But they remain largely invisible in policy execution even if they are visualized in its imagination—uncredentialed, uninsured and excluded from conventional upskilling systems that assume stable jobs, fixed locations and the ability to step away from daily wages.

The question facing India today is whether upskilling systems are designed for the workforce that actually exists.

Over the last three years, Smile Foundation’s iTrain on Wheels initiative has offered a practical answer.

The core challenge: Upskilling without exclusion

Most upskilling programmes are built on assumptions that informal workers cannot meet. They require travel to centralised centres, time away from work, documentation and familiarity with institutional processes. For a daily-wage worker, these requirements are not inconveniences; they are barriers.

As a result, upskilling has often failed precisely where it is needed most.

iTrain on Wheels reverses this logic. Instead of asking workers to enter the system, it takes the system to where workers already are. Training is delivered through mobile units, free of cost, near worksites and communities. This single design choice—mobility over centralisation—is the programme’s most important innovation.

It recognises a simple truth: for informal workers, time is income and access determines participation.

Scale that reflects reality, not dilution

Since its inception, iTrain on Wheels has trained 2.98 lakh household paint applicators across 443 districts in 25 states and 3 Union Territories, including 51 Aspirational Districts. In 2024–25 alone, 135,493 workers were trained through 5,924 training sessions, with the programme growing at a 20 percent annual rate.

These numbers matter not because they are large, but because they are coherent. Scale has been achieved without thinning the intervention. Training quality, curriculum consistency and on-ground delivery have been maintained even as geographic coverage expanded.

This is rare in informal labour skilling, where rapid expansion often weakens outcomes.

From skills to incomes: Measuring what matters

Upskilling programmes frequently struggle to demonstrate post-training impact. Certificates are issued, attendance is recorded, but income outcomes remain unclear.

iTrain on Wheels is an exception.

A third-party evaluation conducted for the programme reports that:

• 97.11 percent of trained applicators experienced income improvement
• 51.58 percent reported that their income at least doubled
• 95.05 percent expanded their client base
• 90.38 percent received formal certification, improving market credibility

These outcomes point to something critical: the market is validating the skills. Workers are not merely trained but are securing more work, commanding higher wages and building reputational capital.

In informal labour markets, where trust and word-of-mouth determine opportunity, this credibility is transformative.

Upskilling as livelihood acceleration, not placement

Unlike formal employment pipelines, informal labour does not culminate in placement letters. Progress looks different: a larger client base, repeat work, the ability to negotiate rates or the capacity to hire others.

The programme’s entrepreneurship orientation recognizes this reality. Training includes soft skills, customer interaction, financial awareness and professionalism—capabilities often absent from technical skilling but essential for income mobility.

Case studies illustrate this clearly. Workers who began as individual applicators now employ small teams. Others have entered stable monthly earning ranges previously inaccessible in the trade. These are not anomalies, instead they reflect a design that treats workers as economic agents.

In this sense, iTrain on Wheels functions as a livelihood accelerator, not a short-term training intervention.

The innovation behind the model

Beyond outcomes, the programme embeds a set of operational innovations that are often overlooked but critical for sustainability:

• GPS-enabled vehicle optimisation improves route planning, cost efficiency and accountability.
• Health and safety capsules, including first-aid training, address occupational risk—an essential but neglected aspect of informal work.
• Trainer soft-skills development ensures consistent delivery quality at scale.
• Standardized yet adaptable curricula allow relevance across diverse regions while maintaining core competencies.

Policy alignment without dependency

iTrain on Wheels aligns with national priorities such as Skill India, PMKVY, PM Vishwakarma, NSDC frameworks and Sector Skill Councils. This alignment ensures relevance, recognition and credibility.

At the same time, the programme does not rely on government delivery infrastructure to function. This independence provides resilience allowing continuity across policy cycles, funding shifts and administrative change.

In a skilling ecosystem often vulnerable to fragmentation, this balance between alignment and autonomy is strategic.

Formalizing work without erasing informality

A persistent policy tension in India is the assumption that informality must be eliminated rather than strengthened. iTrain on Wheels offers a different approach.

By providing certification, safety awareness and market-aligned skills, the programme formalizes outcomes without dismantling informal work structures. Workers retain flexibility while gaining stability and credibility replaces invisibility.

This is particularly important in sectors like construction and home improvement, where informality is not transitional but structural.

Gender inclusion: Early, realistic and necessary

The construction and painting trades remain male-dominated and the programme does not overstate its progress here. Women’s participation is still limited, but intentional.

Female painters have already been trained in states such as Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Meghalaya and Rajasthan. Plans for remaining of the 2025–26 include women-centric skill drives, recognizing that even modest female entry into these sectors carries structural significance.

The programme’s realism here is a strength. Inclusion is being built incrementally, not inflated rhetorically.

Why this matters beyond upskilling

Income stability is not an isolated outcome. It underpins education retention, healthcare access, nutrition and dignity.

By strengthening informal livelihoods, iTrain on Wheels complements Smile Foundation’s work in education and health. Families with predictable incomes are better able to keep children in school, seek timely healthcare and absorb shocks without cascading loss.

In this sense, skilling becomes social protection.

Rethinking the future of work for the informal majority

As India navigates technological change, urbanization and demographic transition, informal labour will not disappear. It will adapt.

The question is whether institutions will adapt with it.

iTrain on Wheels suggests that the future of skilling lies not in credential accumulation, but in contextual capability building designed around how people work, move and earn.

For policymakers, corporates and development actors, the lesson is clear:
Skilling works best when it reduces uncertainty for workers, meets them where they are and delivers outcomes the market recognizes.

From last mile to learning system

What distinguishes iTrain on Wheels is not novelty but coherence. Design, delivery, outcomes and scale reinforce one another.

It positions Smile Foundation not only as an implementing partner, but as a last-mile economic institution capable of translating industrial capability into human outcomes.

As India’s informal workforce seeks formal futures, the path forward will not be linear. But it can be reliable.

Skilling and upskilling, when designed for reality rather than assumption, can be that bridge.

For most students, finishing school is meant to be a moment of arrival. Admission letters bring relief and a sense of earned possibility. But for thousands of families across India, that moment is quickly overtaken by anxiety. Tuition fees, transport costs, devices, hostel charges and daily living expenses pile up at once. What should mark the start of higher learning becomes a financial gamble—one misstep away from debt or dropout.

This is not a marginal problem. It sits at the heart of how India finances education beyond school, and how the state understands risk in young lives. Scholarships are still framed largely as welfare: discretionary, conditional and rationed. They should be treated instead as social protection—a preventive instrument that stabilises learning pathways before economic shocks force irreversible decisions.

The Problem with the Welfare Lens

Most scholarship schemes operate through rigid income thresholds. These cut-offs age badly. Household costs rise steadily; education costs rise faster. Yet eligibility criteria often remain unchanged for years, sometimes more than a decade. Families that fall just above the line face nearly the same vulnerabilities as those below it but receive no support.

Recent debates around revising income limits for Scheduled Caste pre-matric and post-matric scholarships underline the problem. The limits were set when fees were lower, transport cheaper and digital access less essential. Today, laptops and data are no longer optional; they are prerequisites.

The welfare lens also produces volatility. Beneficiary numbers swing year to year because of funding constraints, administrative delays or narrow definitions of eligibility. When scholarships are delayed or reduced, families cannot pause their expenses. They borrow or they withdraw their children from courses. Education decisions are time-bound; assistance that arrives late may as well not arrive at all.

Welfare frameworks invite suspicion and rationing: Who qualifies? Who deserves help? Social protection asks a more practical question: What risks threaten a child’s uninterrupted education, and how do we reduce them?

Why Scholarships Function as Social Protection

Life rarely follows a smooth income curve. A medical emergency, a failed crop, a parent losing work—any one of these can destabilize a household. For families already operating close to the edge, education is often the first casualty.

That is precisely where scholarships matter most—not as rewards for merit alone, but as buffers against disruption. Pensions protect against old age. Health insurance cushions medical shocks. Crop insurance spreads climate risk. In the same way, scholarships protect educational continuity. They prevent small shocks from cascading into permanent loss.

When scholarships are treated as welfare, they are optional and fragile. When treated as social protection, they become predictable, preventive and rights-adjacent—designed to avert harm rather than respond to it after the fact.

Education is becoming a Debt Problem

India’s education financing has become a debt story. Education loans have grown rapidly, with banks and non-banking financial companies now holding portfolios exceeding ₹1 lakh crore. On paper, this signals aspiration. In practice, it exposes a structural gap.

Formal loans demand collateral, guarantors and credit histories—conditions many low-income families cannot meet. When banks turn them away, families often resort to informal lenders. Interest rates are punitive. Recovery practices are coercive. Debt lingers long after degrees are completed, shaping career choices and mental health.

For students, the pressure is immediate. Anxiety disrupts learning. Part-time work crowds out study. Dropout becomes a rational, if tragic, choice.

Scholarships reduce the need for borrowing at the point of maximum vulnerability—at entry into higher education or during transitions between levels. They protect households from predatory credit and protect students from the cognitive load of debt.

Protection Matters Most for those Already at Risk

Scholarships matter for all low-income students, but they are particularly decisive for girls. Financial stress intersects with social expectations, care responsibilities and safety concerns. When money is tight, education is often the first sacrifice, especially for daughters.

Consistent, multi-year support changes family calculus. When schooling is stable, the pressure to marry early declines. When costs are predictable, girls are more likely to persist through transitions—secondary to tertiary, diploma to degree.

Evidence from multiple programmes shows that scholarships paired with mentoring, counselling and academic support improve retention and completion. Social protection works best when it is reliable. Stop-start assistance reproduces uncertainty; continuity builds confidence.

What Protection-grade Scholarships Look Like

If scholarships are to function as social protection, design matters.

First, adequate value. Awards must reflect real costs—tuition, books, transport, devices and connectivity. Small shortfalls are often what push families toward loans or force withdrawal.

Second, timely disbursal. Funds must arrive at the start of the academic cycle, when decisions are made and risks peak. Delays defeat the purpose.

Third, smart targeting. India already collects data on income, caste, gender, geography, disability and first-generation status. Using this systematically can prioritise those facing the highest risk—not those best at navigating paperwork.

Fourth, layered support. Financial aid works best alongside mentoring, career counselling and academic assistance. Protection is not just about money; it is about reducing uncertainty.

Finally, sustainability. Blended models—combining public funding, CSR capital, philanthropy and community participation—can ensure continuity across educational stages. Policy should learn from such models and scale what demonstrably works.

Learning from Practice

Several non-profit and corporate initiatives have moved in this direction, designing scholarships as part of comprehensive support. Smile Foundation, for instance, integrates financial assistance with mentoring and academic support to address the drivers of dropout, not merely the fees. The lesson for policy is not replication of programmes, but adoption of principles: adequacy, predictability and continuity.

A policy shift worth making

Reframing scholarships as social protection would have concrete implications. Income thresholds would be indexed to inflation and education costs. Disbursal calendars would align with academic timelines. Eligibility would reflect risk, not just income. And evaluation would measure continuity and completion, not just enrolment.

This is not an argument for unlimited subsidies. It is an argument for smarter protection. India already invests heavily in education. Ensuring that investment is not lost to avoidable dropouts is fiscally prudent and socially just.

The Larger Stake

India’s demographic promise rests on whether young people can complete education without being derailed by debt, delay or distress. When scholarships help students avoid these traps, they stop being welfare and start being infrastructure—preventive and foundational.

A country that treats education as a pathway must also treat educational risk as something to be insured against. Reimagining scholarships as social protection is a necessary step in that direction for growth.