By 1982, the founding members of Indian Grameen Services (IGS), Shri Vijay Mahajan, Shri Deep Joshi and Dr. Sankar Datta were already considering the importance of professionals engaging in development action. The initial work done with ASSEFA, a Gandhian NGO, helped the trio in establishing Pradan (www.pradan.net) in 1983. In 1987, IGS was registered as a Section 25 (now Section 8) not-for-profit company under the aegis of Pradan, to undertake research and development in livelihood promotion.
By 1996, IGS was transferred to the newly formed BASIX Group, initially as an incubator for the newly formed NBFC, Bhartiya Samruddhi Finance Ltd. (BSFL). Later, IGS evolved into the research and development arm of Basix Social Enterprise Group (SEG) to test new ideas for addressing contemporary livelihood challenges. Aligned with its mission, IGS evolved viable, scalable; replicable; and most importantly sustainable ideas. The products and services thus developed were scaled up, either by IGS itself or by other BASIX Social Enterprise Group (SEG) companies or hived off as new entities. Since its inception, IGS has incubated a number of market led innovations and piloted new concepts around livelihood issues.
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