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1. Budget Brief: Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0

Author:
Avani Kapur, Tanya Rana, and Ritwik Shukla
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
In Financial Year (FY) 2021-22, the Government of India (GoI) restructured the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), POSHAN (Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment) Abhiyaan, and the Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG) into Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0, also known as Poshan 2.0. This brief uses government data to analyse: ■ Required funds, allocations, and releases; ■ Governance, including human resources; ■ Changes in coverage; and ■ Outcomes.
Topic:
Development, Governance, Budget, Children, and Public Spending
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

2. Building a Climate-Ready Indian State: Institutions and Governance for Transformative Low-Carbon Development

Author:
Aditya Valiathan Pillaj, Navroz K. Dubash, and Parth Bhatia
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
This brief lays out a new approach to Indian climate governance. We suggest India’s institutional structure should be aimed at generating and adopting low-carbon development pathways. Doing so implies going beyond energy and emissions policies to also look at deeper economic structures such as patterns of urbanisation, industrialisation, and job creation. We propose a new, independent, non-executive, multi-stakeholder Low-Carbon Development Commission backed by law, to bring both analytical credibility and mechanisms to ensure policy relevance. We further propose the Commission interface with an enhanced set of bodies within the executive branch, interacting through a set of annual reporting requirements and incentives for climate action. By laying out a set of principles, institutions, and mechanisms for interaction, we suggest a path to analytical credible and policy relevant Indian climate governance.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Governance, Institutions, and Carbon Emissions
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

3. Water and Federalism: Working with States for Water Security

Author:
Srinivas Chokkakula, Avani Kapur, and Arkaja Singh
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
India’s poor water security indicators are partly a result of the poor translation of federal spirit in governing its water resources. The limited scholarship on the subject recognizes the vacuum in federal water governance and the weak articulation of Centre’s role to work with states in pursuing India’s long-term development and security goals. Besides, coherent federal responses are critical to address the new governance challenges and emerging risks such as those linked to climate change, floods, dam safety, etc. Yet the national discourse on water federalism is dominated by interstate river water disputes. The study breaks new grounds by going beyond the narrow frame to engage comprehensively with the idea of water federalism in India. It explores the range of policy, institutional, legal and financial instruments for improved water governance. Conceptualised as the Centre’s leverage, the study investigates into these instruments to explore opportunities for the Centre to work with states for improved outcomes. Using mixed methods of qualitative and quantitative approaches, the study looks at the transforming Indian federal state from two contrasting viewpoints: the shifting stakes of the Centre and states in water resources development; and the converging forces of development goals and security concerns. The analysis is supported by case studies of Maharashtra, Punjab and Karnataka states revealing the diverse territorial imaginations and priorities of water resources development and, their implications for national water security. It also examines the experiences of central schemes through intergovernmental fiscal transfers and federal water governance practices internationally to incentivize states’ progressive pathways in water resources management. Identifying federal consensus-building about the Centre’s role and autonomous institutional architecture for data as the two foundational pillars, the study makes concrete recommendations to improve federal governance for long-term development and water security.
Topic:
Security, Development, Water, and Federalism
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

4. Jal Jeevan Mission

Author:
Avani Kapur and Vastav Irava
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
In Financial Year (FY) 2019-20, the National Rural Drinking Water Mission (NRDWM) was restructured and subsumed into Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM). It is Government of India’s (GoI’s) flagship rural drinking water programme to provide functional tap connections to every household for drinking, cooking, and other domestic needs on a sustainable basis. Using government data, this brief reports on: Overall GoI allocations; Trends in releases and expenditures; Component-wise trends; and Progress on coverage.
Topic:
Development, Government, Water, Infrastructure, Budget, Finance, and Rural
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

5. Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Slum Upgradation and Delisting in Odisha

Author:
Scaling City Institutions for India (SCI-FI)
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
In continuation to the Government of Odisha’s landmark initiative of the Odisha Liveable Habitat Mission (OLHM), also known as the JAGA Mission, launched in 2018, and the successful implementation of the Odisha Land Rights to Slum Dwellers Act 2017, basic infrastructure upgradation and delisting of slums emerge as the next critical steps towards transforming these informal settlements into liveable habitats, integrated with the urban area. Towards this end the Scaling City Institutions for India (SCI-FI) initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) as knowledge partner supported Housing and Urban Development Department, GoO to prepare a 'Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Participatory Slum Upgradation and Delisting’. The SOP intends to benefit the key stakeholders by laying down the procedure and benchmarks for undertaking participatory integrated slum level infrastructure upgradation and establishing procedure and documentation for delisting of the slum, to integrate it to the rest of the urban area. This SOP will act as an enabler for ULBs partnering with the Slum Dwellers’ Associations to ensure the availability of adequate basic services to mainstream the slums into the city fabric. This SOP lays down the integral steps to realise community-level benefits building on land rights distribution towards achieving the broader vision of a Liveable Habitat for all.
Topic:
Development, Poverty, Urban, Land Rights, and Slums
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

6. A Hidden Cost: The Pandemic’s Impact on Nutrition

Author:
Avani Kapur and Ritwik Shukla
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
This brief’s focus is solely on core nutrition specific interventions for pregnant women, lactating mothers, and children under six years of age. These address the immediate determinants of fetal and child nutrition and development. Nutrition-sensitive interventions are discussed where relevant.
Topic:
Development, Children, Women, Food Security, and Pandemic
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

7. Infrastructure development in the Northeast: Hydropower, natural resources, legal and institutional frameworks and compliance

Author:
Manju Menon
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
In 2000, the central government declared Northeast India as India’s hydropower hub. Over 165 large dam projects were proposed to come up in the region. These projects were held as crucial to India’s energy and environmental security as well as the economic development of the country’s marginalised northeastern borderlands.However, nearly two decades on, this proposal to regulate the region's water resources remains unimplemented. In addition, the projects have generated a lot of public opposition in Arunachal Pradesh where most of these dams are supposed to be situated, and in the downstream Brahmaputra valley of Assam. This article will look into the government's hype and failure to construct hydropower dams in the Northeast region. It points to the need for a reflexive political decision on water resource management from the BJP-led governments in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and at the Centre.
Topic:
Development, Energy Policy, Government, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

8. Closing the Enforcement Gap: A community led groundtruthing of the expansion of a National Highway Project in Uttara Kannada

Author:
Centre for Policy Research
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
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.
Topic:
Development, Environment, Infrastructure, Law, Social Policy, and Pollution
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

9. Indian Development Cooperation Regains Momentum: 7 Main Takeaways from India’s 2019-20 Union Budget

Author:
Rani Mullen
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
Since the turn of the century, India has continued to enlarge its development cooperation allocations and become a globally significant development cooperation partner. This brief analyzes India’s 2019-20 Union Budget for its development assistance allocations and, using IDCR’s development cooperation database, finds seven main trends in India’s development assistance allocations.
Topic:
Development, Government, Foreign Aid, Budget, and Banks
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

10. National Rural Drinking Water Mission (NRDWM)

Author:
Vastav Irava and Avani Kapur
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
In FY 2017-18, the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) was expanded and is now known as the National Rural Drinking Water Mission (NRDWM). It is Government of India’s (GoI) flagship rural drinking water mission to provide safe and adequate water for drinking, cooking, and other domestic needs on a sustainable basis. Using government reported data, this brief reports on: Allocations for NRDWM, Releases and expenditures, Component-wise trends, and Progress on coverage.
Topic:
Development, Water, Infrastructure, Budget, Rural, and Sanitation
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

11. Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)By AVANI KAPUR and RITWIK SHUKLA

Author:
Avani Kapur and Ritwik Shukla
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
The Integrated Child Development Services is the Government of India’s (GoI’s) flagship programme aimed at providing basic education, health, and nutrition services for early childhood development. This brief uses government data to analyse ICDS performance along the following parameters: Allocations, releases, and expenditures; Component-wise trends; Human and physical resources; Coverage, and Outcome.
Topic:
Development, Education, Government, Health, Budget, and Children
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

12. Beyond Poles and Wires: How to Keep the Electrons Flowing?

Author:
Navroz K. Dubash and Ashwini K. Swain
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
India’s move to electrify every village and household in the country has been lauded as a success. Building on decades of targeted programmes and public investments by multiple governments, the country completed 100% village electrification in April 2018; a year after, it has electrified nearly all ‘willing’ households. Despite the time it took to get here, these achievements are important milestones in India’s development trajectory. But does connecting households to the electric grid resolve the electricity access challenge? The answer depends on whether electrons flow through the wires and whether all consumers are served equally and adequately.
Topic:
Development, Government, Infrastructure, Investment, and Electricity
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

13. Demystifying the Indian Smart City: An Empirical Reading of the Smart Cities Mission

Author:
Persis Taraporevala
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
The newly elected federal Government of India (GoI) launched the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) in 2015 with the stated purpose of improving the governance and infrastructural deficiencies that plague Indian cities. Missing, however, in the pageantry of the new programme is a cohesive understanding of a smart city. While the government documentation repeatedly implies infinite liberty for cities to self-define their understanding of ‘smartness’, the actions demonstrate that there is a larger idea of ‘smartness’ that the federal government seeks to implement. It is at this disjunction, between the rhetoric and practice of the Mission, that this paper finds its core research question – ‘What constitutes a smart city in India?’ Through a detailed reading of the government documentation of the top 99 cities, the paper argues that the there is a profound chasm between the professed objectives of the Mission and the strategies enacted to achieve these objectives.
Topic:
Development, Government, Infrastructure, Social Policy, and Urban
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

14. Census Towns in India - Current Patterns and Future Discourses

Author:
Shamindra Nath Roy and Jaya Prakash Pradhan
Publication Date:
05-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
The surge in census towns (CTs) during Census 2011 has drawn a lot of attention to the ongoing and future dynamics of these in-situ urban settlements in India. Using the village level information from the previous and current censuses, the present study attempts to identify the villages that can be classified as a census town in 2021. While the prevailing dataset bears some obstacles for a neat identification of such settlements, it can be observed that a fairly high number of rural areas may be classified as CTs in future, which currently accommodates a population of 17.9 million. While the current nature of regional distribution of these areas may not vary much over the future, their areal characteristics over time portray multiple spatial processes undergirding India’s urban trajectory. A lot of these prospective CTs are also relatively prosperous than their current rural neighbourhoods, which reinforces the persistence of similar pattern of urban transformation in future.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, Urbanization, Census, and Rural
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

15. Engines without Drivers: Cities in India’s Growth Story

Author:
Partha Mukhopadhyay
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
It is now almost axiomatic that cities are the engines of growth. Historically, federal support programmes have focused on rural areas, but over the past fifteen years, the need to devise such programmes for urban local bodies has come to be recognised, with JNNURM in its various forms, being the most visible early manifestation. This trend has continued, even strengthened, in this government and among the menu of urban support programmes on offer from the Government of India, the vision of the city as the engine of growth is most clearly evident in the Smart City Mission, with its focus on area based development – like an engine within the city. Yet, even in the mainstream economics literature, while there is evidence for cities as places of higher productivity, there is less evidence for cities as drivers of growth – with learning being the primary driver and urban primacy being an important obstacle. The primary questions are whether cities are places of learning, whether there are identifiable mechanisms of such learning and the kind of city institutions – economic, social and political – that facilitate such learning. This paper will interrogate the empirical characteristics of such urban institutions in India in the context of the theoretical literature and learning mechanisms that emerge from international evidence. In particular, it will argue that the nature of the labour market, which is largely contractual, the transfer of rural fragmentation in social relations to cities and the absence of city-level political agency, all reduce the potential of the city as a location of learning economies. For cities to even have the possibility of being engines of growth, we need to ensure that drivers of these engines are in place and we have a mechanism to think about paths to follow.
Topic:
Development, Government, Urbanization, and Economic Growth
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

16. Note on Faecal Sludge Management in Rural India: Graded Solution, legal and Regulatory implications and Possible Administrative Structure

Author:
Arkaja Singh and Anindita Mukherjee
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
Rural areas in India are experiencing significant gains in toilet coverage under the public funded programmes. Given the rate of ‘in-situ urbanization’ in a growing urban paradigm,the rural areas, in many parts, seems to emulate urban infrastructural preferences for their toilets. This may remain annulled due to non-availability of urban like service facilities in the rural context. The first part of the report focusses on establishes the urbanising characteristics of the Large and Dense Villages (LDVs) in India for usage of a specific typology of Sanitation Infrastructure which in turn links to the gaps in terms of service availability across the Faecal Sludge Management (FSM) value chain. In this context, in the second half of the report, the authors examine the various environmental and municipal laws applicable to Sanitation in rural areas. The report also sheds light on how the capacities of various institutions and legal instruments may be leveraged for graded interventions, ensuring safe and sustainable sanitation in rural areas in India.
Topic:
Development, Government, Urbanization, Sanitation, and Services
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

17. An Overview of the Smart Cities Mission in India

Author:
Ashwathy Anand, Ajai Sreevatsan, and Persis Taraporevala
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
The newly elected federal Government of India (GoI) launched the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) in 2015 with the stated purpose of improving the governance and infrastructural deficiencies that plague Indian cities. The Mission categorically states that there is no one definition of a 'smart city' and implies infinite liberty for cities to self-define their understanding of 'smartness'. Towards demystifying the Mission, the researchers utilised government documentation from the 99 cities to answer one question-What constitutes a smart city in India.
Topic:
Development, Government, Urbanization, and Social Policy
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

18. Unpacking the Processes of Open Defecation Free Status in Udaipur: A case study of Udaipur, Rajasthan

Author:
Devashish Deshpande and Avani Kapur
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
This report is the culmination of a study conducted by the Accountability Initiative (AI) on Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin in 2017 on the request of the Udaipur district administration. The study understands the outcomes, and the processes, which led to Open Defecation Free status in selected Gram Panchayats.
Topic:
Development, Health, Social Policy, Sanitation, and Services
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

19. Integrating Urban Development and Climate Objectives: Insights from Coimbatore

Author:
Ankit Bhardwaj and Radhika Khosla
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
Indian cities routinely make decisions on land use, housing, water, transport, economic growth and waste management that have implications for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Aligning these sectoral actions with climate goals involves understanding how infrastructural systems interact and how these choices address both development and climate objectives. City governments, as managers of these various infrastructure systems, can co-ordinate such decision-making. However, so far, this is largely ad hoc. We show how cities can use a ‘multiple objective’ approach to systematically examine, and make explicit, the linkages between local objectives, climate change mitigation and adaptation across their planning portfolio.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Water, Economic Growth, Urban, and Sanitation
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

20. Midcourse Manoeuvres: An overview of community strategies and remedies for natural resource conflicts in India, Indonesia & Myanmar

Author:
Manju Menon
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
Land transformation has been at the centre of economic growth of post-colonial, Asian nation-states. While their political reforms and economic policies have focused on land governance, the outcomes have resulted in promoting privatisation and speculative business interest in ecologically sensitive landscapes that are also under diverse forms of common use by resource-dependent communities. A three-year study undertaken to understand community-level responses to land use transformation in India, Indonesia and Myanmar shows that the current scale and approach of land–intensive development in these large democracies is facilitated by fast-paced, top down policy changes. These policies are ‘stacked’ (when multiple layers of current and revoked laws are simultaneously in use) rather than integrated and their implementation is the responsibility of various authorities and agencies that overlap. Growing private investments in land that has remained within varying degrees of state control have changed the way land is managed. Land has become increasingly securitised and ‘out of bounds’ for small farmers and other land-users with or without recognised forms of ownership and use rights. Land conflicts are caused due to coercive acquisition processes or land grabs, unlawful operations of projects and long pending remedies to social and environmental impacts. In many instances, these conflicts begin even before the final decisions on projects are taken and persist for years. Highly capitalised land use change brings powerful investors and corporations, governments and local communities in unequal and precarious arrangements of negotiation and confrontation. Citizens and communities affected by land use change, use varied strategies such as administrative complaints, protests, litigation, media campaigns and political advocacy, and engage in improving project design and implementation, increase compensations, restore community access to resources and get a review on the operations of harmful projects. These are done under conditions of political intransigence and criminalisation of those who speak up. While all three countries have recognised land conflicts and their impact on development plans and proposals, they are yet to give affected people a formal and effective role in land and natural resource governance. This is the overview of the study's methodology and findings.
Topic:
Development, Privatization, Natural Resources, Business, Economic Growth, Land Law, Conflict, and Land Rights
Political Geography:
Indonesia, India, Asia, Southeast Asia, and Myanmar