SAS 200
The thematic standard for health care, mental healthcare and safe drinking water, illustrated in the workbook by a cataract-surgery case study screening over 50,000 people.
In plain language
Every one of the sixteen Social Impact Assessment Standards matches one eligible SSE activity. SAS 200 covers health care. That includes mental healthcare, sanitation, and safe drinking water.
The workbook does not just define SAS 200 in the abstract. It builds a full case study around it. ABC Foundation ran a rural eye-health project in India. The project treated cataract-related blindness, a major cause of avoidable vision loss.
ABC Foundation worked with local governments, healthcare providers and corporate donors. It ran mobile eye-health camps offering free screenings. People who needed surgery were sent to partner hospitals for free operations, with follow-up care afterward.
How it works
The project's own numbers, as the workbook's case study reports them:
- Over 50,000 individuals screened
- 5,000 cataract surgeries performed in the first year
- Delivered through mobile eye health camps in rural and underserved areas
The assessment's objective and scope: assess the social and health impact of the project, evaluate its effectiveness in providing healthcare access, judge the improvement in beneficiaries' quality of life, and measure the rise in eye-health awareness, using quantitative and qualitative analysis, field data, desk reviews and stakeholder consultations.
Data collection drew on direct beneficiaries (those who received surgeries and their families), the implementing team (healthcare providers, NGO staff, field teams) and local government representatives.
Named limitations, per the workbook: no consistent baseline data for some health outcomes; healthcare-infrastructure variation across villages; difficulty quantifying behavioural change; and a limited sample size, given how spread out the project areas were.
A worked example
The organisation name, screening and surgery figures are the workbook's own SAS 200 case study.
ABC Foundation screens over 50,000 people and performs 5,000 cataract surgeries in its first year. Many beneficiaries are elderly, and the workbook records that many report increased independence and dignity — resuming daily tasks like reading and cooking again.
If 5,000 of 50,000 screened (10%) went on to need and receive surgery, an assessor working under SAS 200 would still need to check more than that ratio: whether follow-up care actually happened, and whether the surgeries held up over time — the outcome-level and impact-level questions SAS 200's health focus is built to probe, beyond the output count of "5,000 surgeries."
Why NISM asks about it
Chapter 8 (Social Impact Assessment - Case Studies), section 8.2, builds its full case study around SAS 200 and ABC Foundation's cataract-surgery project, covering objective and scope, data collection, and named limitations. Social Impact Assessment Standards (Chapter 5, Table 5.5) lists SAS 200 as covering health care, mental health, sanitation and safe drinking water. Expect a question matching "50,000 screened, 5,000 surgeries" to SAS 200.
Common exam traps
- SAS 200 covers health care, mental healthcare, sanitation and safe drinking water — do not confuse it with SAS 1100 (housing) or SAS 500 (environment), covered in the same chapter.
- "5,000 surgeries" is an output, not yet an outcome or impact.
- The chapter heads this as a "Draft" Social Impact Assessment Standard — treat "SAS 200" and "Draft SAS 200" as the same standard.
- For the full list of all sixteen numbered standards, see Social Impact Assessment Standards — this page focuses specifically on SAS 200's own case study.
Check yourself
1.The workbook's case study on ABC Foundation's eye-care and cataract surgery project is presented under which draft Social Impact Assessment Standard?
- a)SAS 200 — promoting health care including mental healthcare, sanitation and safe drinking water
- b)SAS 400 — promoting gender equality and empowerment of women and LGBTQIA+ communities
- c)SAS 500 — environmental sustainability and climate change
- d)SAS 1300 — promotion of financial inclusion
Show the answer
Answer: (a) SAS 200 — promoting health care including mental healthcare, sanitation and safe drinking water
Case 8.2 on eye care is tied to SAS 200, the health care standard.
SAS 400 is used for NGO Sakhi's women's healthcare programme — tempting because it is also a health project, but the standard is about gender equality. SAS 500 is the watershed case, and SAS 1300 is E-Diksha.
Where this is taught
Free preparation for NISM Series XXIIIRelated terms
- OutputThe tangible, countable product or service a project's activities directly produce — immediate evidence of progress, but no guarantee that the project's actual purpose has been achieved.
- SAS FrameworkThe overarching document setting what any Social Impact Assessment engagement must cover — a frame of reference for assessors and users, but with no thematic-specific standards of its own.
- Social Impact Assessment StandardsICAI's sixteen thematic standards, SAS 100 to SAS 1600, mirroring the SSE's eligible activities; compliance is mandatory for social impact assessments of social enterprises listed on an SSE.
- Social Impact AssessorAn individual registered with an SRO (under ICAI or another SEBI-specified agency) who has passed the NISM certification and holds a valid certificate; performs independent verification of impact reports.
- SAS 400The thematic standard for gender equality, women's empowerment and LGBTQIA+ communities, illustrated by NGO Sakhi's women's healthcare programme reaching over 20,000 direct beneficiaries.