NAMASTE Helpline: Connecting India's Waste Pickers to Support and Dignity

By Shilpi Karmakar, Project Manager, Circular Economy at UNDP India

September 28, 2025

As the world observes the International Day for Universal Access to Information, the NAMASTE Helpline illustrates how information can change lives. For waste pickers, long excluded from social protection, a simple call can open the door to health care, pensions, skilling, and dignity at work. By making information accessible, local, and empathetic, the helpline ensures that even the most marginalized are not left behind, showing how access to information is the first step to empowerment.

On the wall of a small grocery shop in the industrial city of Faridabad, Haryana, a sticker read: ‘NAMASTE Helpline’, a support line for waste workers. For Kavita Kumari Devi, a waste picker who migrated from Nalanda, Bihar, it was a chance she almost overlooked. Pregnant with her fourth child, she had delivered all her previous babies at home with the help of midwives, since hospital costs would have drowned the family in debt. This time, she dialed the number. On the other end was not a recorded message, but someone who explained how to apply for an Ayushman Bharat card, India’s government-backed insurance scheme for low-income families. For her, that one call turned a sticker into a lifeline.

A Helpline with a Difference

Across India, there are reportedly 4 million waste pickers. Every day, they collect, sort, and recycle tonnes of waste, sustaining the circular economy and helping keep cities clean. Yet many continue to face challenges such as limited recognition in policy, lack of legal identity, job security, and access to social protection, which leaves them among the most vulnerable groups of urban workers.

To bridge this gap, in November 2023, UNDP piloted a dedicated helpline, the first of its kind for waste pickers. Designed as more than a call centre, it offers a safe, judgment-free space where workers can ask questions and access support. Calls are free through a missed-call system, scripts are available in 12 local languages, and agents are trained not just in technical details but also in empathy and patience, ensuring every caller is treated with dignity.

Health Access Made Real

“When Kavita called, I explained how the Ayushman Bharat scheme works and connected her with a local organization called Bal Vikas Dhara to support enrollment,” recalls Bidyadhar Dalai, a helpline telecaller. He adds that it is more than just a job, “Every time I hear that a worker has received the help they needed, I feel a deep sense of satisfaction. This job has taught me empathy and patience. More than anything, it has shown me how important it is to listen, because sometimes, being heard is the first step to empowerment.”

Bidyadhar Dalai, Telecaller, NAMASTE Helpline

Giloy Ghar Film Collective

For workers like Kavita, this support can mean the difference between unsafe home deliveries and access to affordable hospital care.
She says, “When I became pregnant again, I was very worried because all my earlier deliveries happened at home. We could never afford hospital expenses, and I feared falling into debt. When I called the helpline, they explained the Ayushman Bharat card to me and connected me to the NGO, who helped with my enrollment. Now I know my delivery will take place safely in a hospital. For the first time, I feel secure about my child’s birth and my own health.”

Woman in a dark patterned sari seated at an event, pink chairs in the background. — Kavita at a NAMASTE profiling camp in Faridabad, Haryana

Giloy Ghar Film Collective

From Pilot to National Lifeline

What began as a pilot in 2023 is now a national helpline reaching thousands of India’s waste pickers. In July 2025, the helpline was integrated with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment’s flagship NAMASTE Scheme which focuses on giving workers formal recognition through a nationwide digital registration and occupational ID cards. It links them to government benefits. Workers across the country can dial 14473 to connect to critical services.

In less than two years since its launch, the helpline has already reached close to 60,000 workers, nearly a third of them women. It has fielded more than 180,000 calls, guided enrollments in over 15 government schemes including Ayushman Bharat (health insurance), e-Shram (a national database of unorganized workers that links them to social security), and Jan Dhan (financial inclusion through zero-balance bank accounts).

The idea was never to leave workers with instructions alone. Each call is backed by a network of grassroots mobilizers, NGOs, and Urban Local Bodies who follow through to ensure benefits actually reach families. Co-designed with worker networks, the model was built for dialogue, adapting constantly to the shifting needs of those on the ground.

Today, the helpline is multilingual, gender-sensitive, and inclusive. It offers missed-call and callback options for those with limited balance, and provides information on entitlements ranging from health insurance and pensions to PPE kits, skilling opportunities, and women-focused schemes. Through 77 Resource Organizations (ROs) or NGOs across India, waste pickers are no longer left invisible. They are being guided, step by step, into systems of support.