Archives: Briefs Reports

These comments are drafted based on internal discussion at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR). It should not be considered an institutional position, as CPR does not take institutional positions on issues. Rather, they reflect the result of internal deliberations, aimed at understanding and reflecting on the draft NEP, with the aim of constructive feedback to the NEP Committee.

Child Protection Services is Government of India’s (GoI’s) flagship programme to provide preventive and statutory care, and rehabilitation services to children in need of care and protection and those in conflict with the law as defined under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.

This brief uses government data to analyse CPS performance along the following parameters:

Trends in overall GoI allocations, releases and expenditures;
State wise GoI releases and expenditures;
Child Care Institutes (CCIs) and beneficiaries;
Registered cases of crimes against children.

Even as large parts of government budgets and efforts are directed towards fighting the pandemic, it is important to ensure that children are not overlooked. Critical during this time is going to be ensuring that sufficient resources are provided for the protection to children in precarious positions and ensuring that the existing resources are utilised effectively.

This brief aims to study the status of implementation of Child Protection Services (CPS) scheme prior to the pandemic with a focus on the possible impact of COVID-19 on child protection and welfare.

Air pollution levels are unsafe across the country, all-year round. While pollution levels spike to dangerously high levels during the winter in north India, those in several parts of the country are poor or worse for large parts of the year. High pollution levels are not restricted to cities; several industrial areas along with rural areas across the Indo-Gangetic plain are also polluted. There are several kinds of pollutants in the air: particulate matter, carbon monoxide, ozone, oxides of nitrogen and sulphur. Fine particulates (PM2.5) form a useful proxy indicator for air pollution. The population-weighted annual average concentration of PM2.5 across the country, estimated using satellite data, was 91 microgram/m3 in 2017 – more than twice the national standards.

Jhuggi jhopri clusters often house a population with weak representation, tenuous services, and vulnerability to demolition. Anantram Harijan Basti, a JJC near the centre of Delhi, stands out among the city’s JJCs: its residents have reliable water, electricity, and sanitation services, are relatively safe from demolition, and enjoy effective political representation. This can be attributed in part to the unique political structure of the New Delhi Municipal Council, under whose jurisdiction it falls, but is due largely to the strong and stable patron-client relationships between residents and their elected representative. This is, notably, a structure reinforced by caste and class associations. This report presents a case in which the caste hierarchy frequently believed to reside primarily in rural India is reproduced in the centre of the capital city. Here, however, a system of inequality, paired with political reality, delivers tangible goods for all.

A report of the Cities of Delhi project.

Linear projects like highways have the potential to change existing land use of large areas. These changes are not limited only to the stretches made for transportation of vehicles. The effects of construction are also visible on landscapes on both sides of highways. This study presents the findings of a two-year long groundtruthing study carried out between June 2016 and August 2018 along 187 kilometres of National Highway 66. The study is a collaborative effort of the Centre for Policy Research-Namati Environmental Justice Programme and communities from towns and villages situated between Karwar and Kundapur, especially the 27 Panchayats, in the district of Uttara Kannada in Karnataka. The study presents evidence of non-compliance of environmental safeguards resulting in social, economic and health impacts on the local communities in the project areas. It also highlights several aspects that were not taken into account in the project’s impact assessments. The study includes a broad assessment of the project’s scale of direct impacts.

During the course of the study, the following types of non-compliance were identified:

Permissions for blasting, groundwater and river water withdrawal were not taken
Dumping soil on wetlands and creeks caused flooding and salt water intrusion
The construction caused soil erosion and landslides along embankments
Non-submission of six-monthly compliance reports by the project proponent
Non-compliance of other laws and compensation agreements
The report includes a case study of a stone crusher unit operating in Bogribail village and causing water and dust pollution.

The ecologically unique but fragile Mundra region in the western Indian state of Gujarat has seen ferocious industrial expansion over the last decade and a half. A range of multipurpose ports, coal-handling facilities and thermal power plants have been granted approval under various environment regulations and built.

This report from Namati, produced in partnership with Mundra Hitrakshak Manch (Forum for the Protection of Rights in Mundra), MASS and Ujjas Mahila Sangathan, shows that the enforcement of these regulations has been woefully inadequate.

This brief describes how the Satara Nagar Palika (Municipality) a medium sized town in the state of Maharasthra, manages to provide basic urban services like water, solid waste and faecal waste management. The note profiles their planning and management practices and provides a valuable snapshot into the functioning of a Municipality for professionals in the sector and students of the subject.

Policy and planning documents define eight types of settlement in Delhi, only one of which is termed “planned”. The other seven types of settlement become, by opposition, ‘unplanned’. This ‘unplanned’ city houses the vast majority of Delhi’s residents across the economic spectrum: these settlements include the affluent farmhouses of South Delhi, well-built colonies populated by successful businesspeople, and dense slum-like areas.

The most frequently cited estimates of population housed in each of these categories of settlement first appeared in a document published in 2001 by the Delhi Urban Environment and Infrastructure Improvement Project (DUEIIP). The DUEIIP, a collaboration between the Planning Department of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) and the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forest, was a World Bank-funded effort to prepare a plan for improvements in Delhi’s urban infrastructure and environment for 2021. The most striking observation recorded in the population data released by DUEIIP is that, in 2000, less than a quarter of Delhi’s population was living in “planned colonies”.