Verified · May 20261 min read
● projectScaled · national · 2014
mMitra / Kilkari (ARMMAN, maternal and child mobile messaging)
Free voice message service synchronized with the stage of pregnancy/child-rearing for low-income women, created by the NGO ARMMAN in Mumbai (mMitra, 2014).
illustrative atlas image · Roger Brown / PexelsAARMMANMOMinistry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of IndiaAHAparna Hegde
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01 The context
A pseudo-randomized trial (BMC Public Health 2020, Murthy et al.) showed improvements in maternal self-care knowledge and practices. The model scaled as Kilkari, implemented with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare: the world's largest mobile maternal messaging program, expanding to all states and territories of India by 2026, and integrated into the national JANANI platform (launched by the Government of India in May 2026). It uses AI (restless multi-armed bandits, the SAHELI project with Google Research and Harvard) to prioritize retention calls.
02 How it works
03 What it stands on
Evidence level
Own experience
Grounded in published theory
Documented evidence elsewhere
Independently evaluated here
Peer-reviewed research documents this project: the strongest evidence level in the atlas.
The evidence 2 ›
EvidenceDecisions and Deployment: The Five-Year SAHELI Project (2020-2025) on Restless Multi-Armed Bandits for Improving Maternal and Child HealtharXiv (Verma, Dasgupta, Madhiwalla, Taneja, Tambe) · 2026
EvidenceEffects of an mHealth voice message service (mMitra) on maternal health knowledge and practices of low-income women in India: findings from a pseudo-randomized controlled trialBMC Public Health (Murthy N, Chandrasekharan S, Prakash M, et al., 20:820) · 2020