For seven-year-old Roshni, a prosthetic arm was far more than a medical device. Born without an upper limb, she had grown up without experiencing many of the small, everyday moments most of us take for granted, holding an object with both hands or simply lifting a glass. When she was fitted with a 3D-printed prosthetic arm through Niramay Charitable Trust, she picked up a glass for the first time with her new hand. What followed was unforgettable: she laughed with pure joy for nearly 15 minutes.
For Dr. Hariprakash Hadial, Co-founder of Niramay Charitable Trust, that moment stayed with him.
There were no statistics, no presentation slides and no impact reports in that moment. There was simply a little girl discovering something she had never been able to do before, and finding immense joy in it.
For Hariprakash, that is what meaningful social impact ultimately looks like.
Hariprakash’s own journey into the social sector began with medicine, but eventually took him far beyond the clinical settings. From studying medicine at B.J. Medical College, Ahmedabad and working at Apollo Hospital in Gandhinagar to pursuing public health in the United States, working with UNICEF and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and eventually establishing Niramay in 2018, his career has been shaped by one question: How can healthcare create meaningful change in people’s lives, how can that change reach those who need it most?
From Medicine to A Larger Question About Health
During his MBBS at B.J. Medical College, Hariprakash was uncertain about the direction his career would take. Along with a group of like-minded friends, he was already discussing medical and health technology and the biomedical aspects of healthcare.
After graduation, he worked at Apollo Hospital in Gandhinagar for around eight to nine months. He respected clinical medicine and understood its importance. Yet, somewhere along the way, he began to feel that his own path might lie elsewhere.
He then moved to the United States to pursue a Master of Public Health at Western Kentucky University. After completing his MPH, he worked as a Research Assistant at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was involved in data analysis and co-authored a research paper.
Living in cities such as Philadelphia and New York, surrounded by towering skyscrapers, iconic bridges, modern infrastructure and remarkable technological advancement, raised a different set of questions for Hariprakash. Yet he did not find the sense of peace or fulfilment he was seeking. He began to reflect more deeply on what development truly meant if it did not address fundamental human needs or bring meaningful improvement to people’s lives.
That internal questioning eventually brought him back to India around 2011 but not with a perfectly mapped-out career path, but with a strong desire to work in the country’s growing social sector and create a meaningful impact in people’s lives.
Understanding Public Health from Grassroots
Returning to India also meant starting from a position of limited familiarity with the country’s public health system.
Hariprakash chose to work in Narmada district, a remote, hilly and predominantly tribal region, and one of India’s aspirational districts, where more than 90% of the population is tribal. The experience gave him a close understanding of healthcare challenges at the grassroots level. Narmada became an important classroom for him, teaching some of the most valuable lessons of public health is not from textbooks, but from communities and their everyday realities.
He subsequently spent around eight years with UNICEF Gujarat, working at district, regional and state levels. Later, he moved to New Delhi and joined the Maternal Health Division of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, where he gained valuable exposure to health policy, programme planning and the policymaking process at the national level.
But working at the policy level also made him conscious of the distance between policy and field implementation. He eventually returned to Gujarat.
For Hariprakash and his partners, the vision was to build an organisation that could respond to diverse health needs within communities rather than remain confined to a single theme. They wanted to create an organisation that could work with vulnerable and underserved populations, address real gaps in healthcare, and bring meaningful and lasting change to people’s lives, while retaining the freedom to work across different areas of public health that they found meaningful and fulfilling. That vision led to the registration of Niramay Charitable Trust in 2018.
Building Niramay Was Not Easy
Building a new organisation from the ground up brought its own set of challenges. Unlike many traditional philanthropic institutions that begin with established financial backing, networks or institutional support, Niramay started with limited resources and had to build its systems, credibility and partnerships step by step. For Hariprakash and the founding team, leaving established professional careers to create a social organisation was itself an unconventional path, and there was no ready blueprint for how to build and manage an NGO.
One of the earliest hurdles was establishing credibility. Like many emerging nonprofits, Niramay faced a difficult cycle: donors and CSR partners often looked for a proven track record before committing funds, while building that track record required resources and opportunities in the first place. The organisation therefore had to demonstrate its intent and capabilities through smaller initiatives, partnerships and consistent field-level work before larger opportunities began to emerge.
Securing projects was equally challenging. Hariprakash recalls that during the early years, fewer than one in every hundred proposals resulted in support. Even after Niramay built a stronger reputation and portfolio, he estimates that only around 5–10% of proposals ultimately translate into funded projects. The experience reflects the highly competitive nature of the social sector.
Human resources continue to be another challenge. Finding dedicated people who are genuinely committed to social-sector work and who share the founders’ passion remains an ongoing task. Gradually, they learned along the way and moved forward one step at a time.
Bringing Technology into Disability Support
Today, Niramay operates through five offices across Gujarat, located in Gandhinagar, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Devbhumi Dwarka and Vadodara. As of 2026, through its various projects and initiatives, the organisation has touched and transformed the lives of more than 8 lakh people.
One of its distinctive initiatives is Project Saksham, under which Niramay has established the Saksham Clinic to develop and provide 3D-printed prosthetic hands, with technical guidance from Free 3D Hands, an international organisation based in Australia.
The 3D-printed prosthetic arms are lightweight, weighing just 700 to 900 grams, affordable, durable and completely manufactured in India. More than 200 such arms have been distributed free of cost across Gujarat and Rajasthan to persons with upper-limb disabilities.
For Hariprakash, the significance of such technology lies not merely in the innovation itself, but in its ability to make a practical and meaningful difference in someone’s life. Roshni’s experience became one such powerful example.
For Hariprakash, her laughter after lifting a glass with her new prosthetic arm became a powerful reminder of what Niramay’s work could mean beyond numbers, statistics and reports.
Reaching Children Through Nutrition and Anemia Programmes
Niramay’s work extends across nutrition and anemia, cancer prevention, eye health, disability support, and elderly care, with most of these initiatives supported through CSR funding.
Through Project Vruddhi, a multi-year initiative, the organisation works to address malnutrition and anemia among pregnant women, children and adolescent girls. Under another anemia mitigation initiative, Niramay has screened more than seven lakh children across Gujarat for anemia using digital hemoglobinometers.
The organisation also works in cancer research and prevention. An ICMR-supported project focuses on the early identification and management of oral potentially malignant disorders using advanced diagnostic tools, with the aim of developing practical protocols that can be used by community health workers. Another initiative, Project Udaan, is a four-year programme running until 2029 that focuses on raising awareness among school children in Vadodara about smoking, tobacco use, and the prevention of head and neck cancer.
Likewise, through Project Drashti, Niramay has conducted eye screening for more than 43,000 school children and community members using autorefractometers and has provided customised spectacles to more than 8,000 individuals.
Niramay is also working in elderly care through several initiatives, including Project Mavtar, which focuses on health check-ups for older adults, and Project Care, under which 1,000 wheelchairs have been distributed across 11 states in India. The organisation has also supported old-age homes through the distribution of water purifiers.
Measuring Impact Through Implementation Research
While speaking to The Logical Indian, Hariprakash emphasised that Niramay’s research approach is centred on implementation research rather than purely academic research.
The objective is to understand what works when interventions are implemented on the ground, measure their outcomes, and generate evidence that can inform future programmes and policy.
Niramay has published several research papers based on its field-level work, helping translate practical experience into evidence that can contribute to policy and programme improvements.
For Hariprakash, such evidence helps connect social-sector interventions with measurable outcomes. At the same time, Roshni’s story represents another dimension of impact, one that may not always fit neatly into a research paper.
A child being able to lift a glass for the first time and respond with 15 minutes of uncontrollable laughter can, in itself, become a powerful measure of change.
Looking Beyond Gujarat
Niramay’s next phase includes plans to expand into nearyby states including Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh while exploring opportunities in other states.
Hariprakash also envisions the organisation eventually expanding internationally, including to the USA, UK and African Countries. The trust is looking at new thematic areas as well, including education, climate change and livelihood.
At the organisational level, the model is built around empowering team leaders to take ownership of projects with minimal interference from the directors. The intention is to allow people leading individual initiatives to make decisions and drive the work themselves.
Over the years, Niramay has developed a set of guiding principles that shape its overall philosophy and way of working. One of its core principles is maintaining the highest level of transparency across all programmes, operations, and financial transactions. This commitment is reflected in Niramay’s practice of making its annual reports, project reports, and relevant financial information publicly available.
For someone who began his career wondering whether clinical medicine was the right path, Hariprakash’s journey has ultimately taken him into a much broader understanding of healthcare.
His experience across clinical medicine, public health, grassroots implementation, policymaking, research and social entrepreneurship has shaped the way he views impact: not simply as an intervention delivered, but as a change that can be seen in a person’s life.
And sometimes, as Roshni’s laughter showed him, that change can be as simple as being able to lift a glass.
The Logical Indian Perspectives
Hariprakash’s journey shows how healthcare can create meaningful social change when it moves beyond clinical treatment and reaches underserved communities. Niramay’s work combines grassroots understanding, empathy, technology and research to address diverse health needs.
Its focus on dignity and practical outcomes reminds us that impact is not only about numbers, but also about improving everyday lives. As Niramay expands its work, how can more organisations ensure that social impact remains people-centred, inclusive and meaningful?
What does meaningful social impact look like to you, and how should organisations measure the change they create?
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