Policy Briefs & Reports

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 national lockdown in March 2020, India saw the mass movement of an estimated 11.4 million migrants back to their home states. Many more remained stranded at worksites and destination cities, and experienced hunger, indebtedness and sickness. The vulnerability of m...

India’s water bodies are rife with pollution from indiscriminate disposal of untreated sewage and septage, endangering the lives of millions of people depending directly or indirectly on these rivers. According to the estimates of the National Green Tribunal vide order no.673/2018, more than 60 p...

The FCDO-CPR partnership for “Building State Capacities for land, planning and slum upgrading for resilient cities in Odisha” has been working closely with the H&UDD, Government of Odisha since 2020. The partnership primarily focused on setting up processes for effective monitoring of the UWE...

Samagra Shiksha is Government of India’s (GoI’s) school education programme extending from the pre-primary to higher-secondary level. The scheme was launched in April 2018 to ensure equitable and inclusive quality education. It has been recently revised to implement certain provisions under the N...

In Financial Year (FY) 2021-22, Government of India (GoI) restructured the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), POSHAN (Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment) Abhiyaan, the Scheme for Adolescent Girls, and the National Creche Scheme into Saksham Anganwadi and POSHA...

The National Programme of PM POSHAN, previously known as the National Scheme for Mid-Day Meals in schools (MDM), is a scheme to provide one hot cooked meal in government and government-aided schools. It aims at improving the nutritional status of students. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 ...

Food Subsidy is provided by the Government of India (GoI) for the supply and distribution of foodgrains and other essential commodities. With the passing of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in 2013, nutritional security became a right. Under the Act, adequate quantities of quality food at...

Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) is Government of India’s (GoI’s) rural drinking water programme to provide functional tap connections to every household for drinking, cooking, and other domestic needs on a sustainable basis by 2024. It subsumes the previous National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP...

Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) is Government of India’s (GoI’s) income support scheme, under which all landholding farmers receive up to ₹6,000 per year to supplement their financial needs. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, this brief uses government data to analyse:...

National Health Mission (NHM) is Government of India’s (GoI’s) largest public health programme. It consists of two sub-missions: ■ National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), and ■ National Urban Health Mission (NUHM). Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, this brief uses government data ...

Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G) is Government of India’s (GoI) flagship ‘Housing for All’ scheme. The scheme was launched in November 2016 and aims to provide monetary assistance for the construction of a pucca house with basic amenities to all rural houseless families and those liv...

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is Government of India’s (GoI’s) flagship scheme to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a Financial Year (FY) to every rural household that demands work. Using government reported data, this brief report...

This policy brief explores the intersection of land rights and technology by analysing four government schemes, namely, Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP), Survey of Villages Abadi & Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVAMITVA), AgriStack, and JAGA M...

The urban slums have reported the highest seroprevalence with 31.7 per cent, as per ICMR’s third national serosurvey in January 2021. With highly infectious nature of SARS-Cov-2 virus, the densely populated urban informal settlements, which are perpetually constrained for space, are at greatest r...

Recognising the inadequacies in the state of housing in India, the national agenda of housing for all has emerged as one of the top priorities of the government. Despite the launch of numerous schemes to improve the housing conditions of economically weaker sections (EWS) and low-income groups (L...

The 2020 migrant crisis in the wake of the COVID-19 national lockdown highlighted the urgent need to incorporate migrants in existing social protection mechanisms, which fail to recognize circular and seasonal mobility patterns. During the lockdown, the lack of adequate portability mechanisms mea...

While the public housing programmes have predominantly neglected rental housing, about one in every three persons in urban India resided in a rental accommodation as of 2011, albeit informally in 70% of the cases (NSS 76th round). Temporary migrants, who intend to return to their previous place o...

With more and more people becoming upwardly mobile, coupled with increasing connectivity, there has been a spurt in online content consumption. The availability of a wide variety of content has attracted a large number of people, across demographics, with varying tastes and sensibilities. Easy ac...