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Tag Search: “public service delivery”

Examining the macro effects of MNREGA

While numerous micro-founded studies examine the household-level effects of MNREGA, little is known about its aggregate macro effects and long-term benefits to output, if any. Analysing district-level...

  • Articles

Teacher accountability: Non-teaching work over classroom engagement

While the Right to Education Act, 2009 mandates 200 days of teaching for primary classes, the actual number seems to be much lower in government schools. Based on qualitative fieldwork and a survey in...

  • Notes from the Field

Balancing corruption and exclusion: A response

The role of Aadhaar in reducing corruption in PDS has been highly controversial. In a recent I4I article, Muralidharan et al. summarised the results of their study in Jharkhand, which confirmed the 'p...

  • Perspectives

Locked out of critical care: Covid-19 lockdown and non-Covid mortality

India’s 10-week long national lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19 was among the most severe in the world. This article investigates the effects of the lockdown restrictions on healthcare access...

  • Articles

Balancing corruption and exclusion: A rejoinder

The role of Aadhaar in reducing corruption in the PDS has been highly controversial. In a recent I4I article, Muralidharan et al. summarised the insights of their study of Aadhaar-based biometric auth...

  • Perspectives

Subsidies, merit goods, and fiscal space - II

In Part I of this two-part series, the authors presented their estimates of total budget subsidies, and their merit and non-merit components. In this part, they discuss the relationship between subsid...

  • Perspectives

Subsidies, merit goods, and fiscal space - I

Mundle and Sikdar argue that rationalisation of the prevailing large volume of non-merit subsidies should constitute a major component of deep fiscal reforms in India. Doing so could free up the fisca...

  • Perspectives

Citizen-State relations: Countryside and city

To what extent do citizens expect officials to respond to local problems, and how do they make demands on the State to advance their well-being? Based on surveys in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, this ...

  • Articles

A review of the coverage of PDS

The coverage of the Public Distribution System (PDS) has been of wide interest due to the pandemic and lockdown. Based on government data sources, Khera and Somanchi estimate the state-wise coverage o...

  • Perspectives

Hunger and precarity: The state of nomadic fortune-tellers of Odisha

In this note, Abinash Dash Choudhury, who works as part of a network of researchers to present fortnightly data on the humanitarian crisis associated with Covid-19 in India, writes about the current s...

  • Notes from the Field

Covid-19 relief: Are women Jan Dhan accounts the right choice for cash transfers?

While the relief package announced by the Government of India for Covid-19 rightly complements food rations with cash transfers, the case for using the list of women Jan Dhan bank accounts for the lat...

  • Perspectives

How India can lead the world to build a functioning public health system

The world has not yet invested in a cadre of trustworthy, community-embedded public health workers who are empowered to undertake their tasks as professionals, despite the lessons from Ebola virus dis...

  • Articles