Anonymous inclusion surveys that turn into BRSR-ready gender and disability data
TL;DR Proportia runs short, anonymous inclusion surveys for listed Indian companies and turns the answers into the gender, disability and turnover tables their sustainability report already asks for. It blocks any cut small enough to expose a person. The HR head and the company secretary share the bill, because both carry the disclosure.
Every listed company in SEBI's BRSR scope reports headcount, turnover and pay by gender, plus how many differently abled people it employs. Under the BRSR Core circular, those numbers now need outside assurance, phased from the top 150 companies to the top 1,000[1]. What the filing can't show is whether women and disabled staff actually feel they can stay and grow. India has a lot riding on that - barely a quarter of working-age women hold jobs, and maternity breaks are a common exit point[2].
HR teams usually find out late, from exit interviews. Engagement surveys exist, but their reports rarely split results by gender or disability, and when they do, a team with two disabled employees might as well be named.
The seed suggested AI sentiment analysis to fix diversity problems and I changed how it works. Reading staff chat and email for mood is legal for employment purposes under the DPDP Act[3], but it kills the trust an inclusion survey depends on. So Proportia uses opt-in surveys instead.
A twelve-question pulse runs each quarter on phone or laptop, in English and Hindi first. Staff can self-identify gender, disability and caregiving status, or skip it. A language model groups open comments into themes such as promotion, night shifts, commute and leave, and a human analyst checks every theme before it goes anywhere near a report.
Two rules make it different. No result is shown for a group smaller than ten people.
And each quarter's output maps to the BRSR fields the company files, with a separate "experience" annex the board can read next to the headcount table. Managers get three actions per team and not another dashboard.
The CHRO owns the survey, but the company secretary and sustainability lead own the BRSR filing, so pitch it to both. A listed mid-cap with 2,000–10,000 staff already pays for payroll and HR software. For scale, one popular payroll platform charges ₹2,495 a month for 50 employees plus ₹45 per extra head on its basic plan[4]. There's no public price for inclusion surveys in India, so testing the price is part of the job. Expect an annual contract and not per-seat billing.
SEBI's July 2023 circular brought reasonable assurance to BRSR Core, with a glidepath that keeps adding companies each year[1]. The DPDP Rules, notified in November 2025, set out the notice and security duties for staff data[5]. Assurance means someone will now actually check the workforce numbers.
There's no public figure for India's inclusion-analytics spend. The narrowest real number is the buyer pool - up to 1,000 listed companies inside the BRSR Core glidepath[1]. The adjacent signal is a global survey platform that says over 6,000 companies use it worldwide[6]. That shows companies pay for listening tools, not that Indian mid-caps will pay for this one.
The Indian leader in employee listening claims 330+ enterprise CHROs and offers turnover prediction[7]. One global survey platform lists a DEI survey inside its engagement product[6]. Big audit and ESG consultancies prepare BRSR filings. The gap is a tool that joins the two, with inclusion feedback protected at small group sizes and delivered in the shape of the disclosure.
| Difficulty | Moderate (33/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹45–85 L |
| Time to launch | 6–9 months |
The software is ordinary. The hard parts are trust and sales. Staff must believe the anonymity, which means the small-group rule can never bend for a senior buyer, no matter how nicely they ask. Selling to listed companies is slow, and you need a credible sustainability adviser or assurer who will vouch for the output format.
No sector licence applies. You never file anything yourself, but your output has to fit what clients file.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let AI decide what a theme means for a specific group or write the final disclosure. A human analyst checks every output, and the filing stays with the company.
Want to work out the AI layer for Proportia? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I'd take a look at this if you've sold to CHROs or worked on ESG reporting. If you want a self-serve product then skip it, because this is a consultative sale. Before building anything, get three listed companies to share last year's BRSR and agree to a paid pilot in one business unit.
Plan for roughly ₹45–85 L to build the survey tool, the BRSR mapping and a consultative sales effort.
No sector licence. You need DPDP-compliant notice and security for staff data, plus the usual company and GST registration.
Yes. Swap BRSR for whatever diversity disclosure your market requires, and check local data protection rules on asking about disability.
The free Proportia validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the data-protection and disclosure checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for HR and sustainability heads, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Proportia or something close to it? The make-or-break work is earning enough staff trust to clear the small-group floor in the first pilot. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.