Pilots — Ghaziabad & Dharwad

Two district pilots — in Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh) and Dharwad (Karnataka) — set out to answer a precise question. They did not test whether local demand and supply existed. They tested whether that demand and supply could be made visible and actionable.

The pilots revealed, rather than created, demand and supply that was already present.

10,000+

Local job openings per district, from < 10% of MSMEs

20,000+

Seekers structured across two districts in just 2 weeks

2–3 min

To become digitally discoverable via voice AI on any phone

~50%

Placement conversion in targeted drives, vs ~5% at conventional drives

< ₹10

Per interaction (voice AI) vs ₹500+ for traditional field survey

Hidden demand, surfaced

When roughly 10% of MSMEs in each district were Blue Dotted, over 10,000 local job openings surfaced per district — many of which had been circulating through word-of-mouth and fragmented postings for months. During the same period, leading national platforms showed fewer than 100 active listings for the same districts.

The demand was never absent. It was digitally dark.

Supply, structured in two weeks

In each of Dharwad and Ghaziabad, over 15,000 job seekers surfaced and were structured into discoverable digital signals in just two weeks — 20,000+ across the two districts.

Voice-enabled Blue Dotting reduced intent capture to 2–3 minutes per person, replacing physical camps, job fairs and intermediary networks that previously took weeks of mobilisation.

Outcomes

• Placement conversion rose from around 5% at conventional placement drives and job fairs to around 50% in targeted, digitally enabled drives, where both candidates and jobs are Blue-Dotted before the event.
• Time to discover a relevant candidate fell from more than 2 weeks to under 2 days.
• Jobs that once required long commutes — often to another city — were now within 2 bus stops.

The lifecycle in practice

Both districts ran the same seven-step lifecycle — one cohort of job seekers, one of job providers, reaching them by different routes.

Dharwad — electrician graduates from ITI Dharwad

ITI Dharwad trains electricians every year, but its graduates had no way of being found by employers beyond word of mouth. The institute became the aggregator for the batch.

Step	What happened
1. To Become a Blue Dot	The district identified ITI Dharwad as the aggregator with direct reach to a graduating batch of electricians — real skills, no digital visibility
2. Route in	Assisted — the institute already held student records
3. Data collection	Bulk upload of the whole batch at once, rather than student by student
4. Profile completion	Each graduate reached by AI Voice Agent — a short call, at a fraction of the cost of a manual survey, confirming role preferences, location and trade skills. The webapp stayed available for students who preferred it
5. Blue Dot checks	Each profile checked automatically for structured, complete, consented
6. Blue Dot Verified	ITI Dharwad reviewed and confirmed the batch on the Aggregator DPG
7. Live Blue Dot	Each electrician a live, discoverable job seeker — local manufacturers could find exactly this skill set for the first time, instead of relying on informal referrals

Ghaziabad — an MSME association converting job openings into Blue Dots

Ghaziabad’s manufacturing MSMEs had jobs to fill, often circulating only by word of mouth for months. A local MSME association took on the aggregator role for its member businesses.

Step	What happened
1. To Become a Blue Dot	The Ghaziabad administration, with UPSDM and the DIC, identified the MSME association as best placed to reach its manufacturing members
2. Route in	Assisted — an onboarding drive at a member gathering, since many owners would not have registered on their own
3. Data collection	An inbound campaign — members scanned a shared QR code and registered their open roles on the spot
4. Profile completion	Each business completed its listing — role, requirements, location — through the AI Voice Agent or the webapp
5. Blue Dot checks	Each listing checked automatically for structured, complete, consented
6. Blue Dot Verified	The association reviewed and confirmed new listings on the Aggregator DPG
7. Live Blue Dot	Each opening a live, discoverable Blue Dot

Across the district, this conversion took the pilot from under 100 jobs visible on national platforms to over 10,000 local openings surfaced from under 10% of MSMEs — with discovery time falling from over two weeks to under two days.

Before / After

	Before	With Blue Dots
Job openings visible locally	< 100 on national platforms	10,000+ per district, from < 10% of MSMEs
Cost of capturing local economic intelligence	₹500+ per interaction (traditional field survey)	< ₹10 per interaction (voice AI)
Time to become digitally discoverable	Multiple touchpoints, physical presence required	2–3-minute voice conversation on any phone
Speed of surfacing job seekers	Weeks of physical mobilisation, camps and job fairs	20,000+ surfaced across two districts in 2 weeks
Time to discover a relevant candidate	> 2 weeks	< 2 days
Placement conversion	~5% at conventional drives and job fairs	~50% in targeted placement drives
Distance to employment	Long commutes, often to another city	Within 2 bus stops

Named proof

Shri Abhinav Gopal, IAS, Chief Development Officer, Ghaziabad, outlined how job and candidate aggregators come together to generate Blue Dots across the district through a Jobs Facilitation Centre (JFC).

In Dharwad, manufacturers were convened by a local MSME association to convert their job openings into Blue Dots, and electrician graduates from ITI Dharwad were made digitally discoverable.

Ecosystem uptake

A range of organisations are already leveraging Blue Dots — placement and skilling organisations sharpening their targeting, assessment providers, and local operators scaling deployment. Named participants from the pilots include:

• Head Held High
• Recex
• JobsUFL
• TRRAIN
• Proof Of Skill
• Digital Labour Chowk

Momentum

Both districts are expanding the approach internally. Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka are scaling it to multiple districts across each state in the coming year.

Go deeper

See The Economics of Local Discovery for the underlying market logic, and Activating Blue Dots in a District for the playbook these pilots followed.

Note

Figures on this page are drawn from the initiative’s published pilot results (white paper, pp. 2, 12–13) and from Answers to questions on Blue Dots initiative, which supersedes the earlier placement-conversion figures. Update them as new pilot data is reported.