•  

Tag Search: “public service delivery”

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

Kerala’s management of Covid-19: Key learnings

Kerala was the first Indian state to be affected by Covid-19 with the highest number of cases at one point in time, but today it has a flat infection curve and one of the highest recovery rates in Ind...

  • Perspectives

Balancing corruption and exclusion: Incorporating Aadhaar into PDS

How should recipients of publicly provided goods and services prove their identity in order to access these benefits? This article reports findings from a large-scale experiment across 15 million bene...

  • Articles

The State’s frontline workers: An overlooked human resource

The Covid-19 and the related lockdown have focused the nation's attention on two groups of people who number in millions but have still somehow not received adequate attention: the migrant informal wo...

  • Notes from the Field

Covid-19: What can be done immediately to help vulnerable population

With over 80% of India’s workforce employed in the informal sector and one-third working as casual labour, Covid-19's spread and subsequent unplanned lockdowns, have created economic havoc in the live...

  • Perspectives

Identifying the binding constraints of agricultural growth in Bihar

Out of the seven-year period set for doubling of farmers’ income by the government, four full agricultural years have already gone. This article identifies the binding constraints on farmers’ income o...

  • Articles