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Building State capacity for accelerating development through effective governance
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Governance
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana: Issues and gaps in service delivery and access
The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana is a much-needed and purposeful scheme, given the health hazards faced by women inside households as 79% of rural Indian households still depend on traditional unclean energy sources for cooking. In this post, Rahul Ranjan contends that unless the energy policy in non-agricultural sector encourages the use of alternative energy, replacement of traditional fuels within households is unlikely to happen at large scale.
Do politicians receive special treatment in courts?
Do Members of Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) facing pending criminal cases receive favourable treatment in the Indian legal system? This article uncovers opposite effects of winning office, depending on the political alignment with the state ruling party. It shows that having cases disposed of without conviction during an MLA's period in the legislature is 17% more likely for ruling party MLAs, and 15% less likely for other MLAs.
Consent to nothing: Aadhaar-based payment systems in welfare
The process of seeding Aadhaar with bank accounts in order to link welfare schemes and cash transfers with Aadhaar payment systems, created chaos on the ground. In this note, Niklas Wagner and Sakina Dhorajiwala discuss findings from their field study in rural Jharkhand, which reveal that bank employees are unable to cope with the many changes directed from above – much to the chagrin of the most vulnerable sections of people.
How democratic are the states of India?
India is often credited for its success as the world’s largest democracy – but does the degree of democracy vary across Indian states? This article develops an index to map the development of subnational democracy across states over time. Drawing on newly assembled data for 1985-2013, it demonstrates that threats to subnational democracy come from multiple directions, including the central government and non-State armed actors.
Political alignment and economic outcomes: Evidence from legislative assembly elections in India
Theory suggests better economic outcomes prevail when providers at different levels of government are politically aligned. While politicians are jointly responsible for several policies, other policies are entirely provided by a single politician. This article studies the development effects of political alignment between local legislative constituency representatives and state governments in India. It finds that regions where such political alignment exists get fewer policies that are entirely provided by a single politician.
Ujjwala 2.0: What should be done next?
Stopping the use of wood and other solid fuels for cooking and other household uses is crucial to mitigating air pollution and its staggeringly high health impacts in India. In 2016, the government announced Ujjwala scheme, which provides financial assistance to poor households to meet the upfront cost of LPG connection. In this post, Sagar and Tripathi provide suggestions to design Ujjwala 2.0 to ensure that poor households continue to use LPG.
Using mobiles to improve governance
Measuring how well major public programmes are implemented remains a core governance challenge. With the increasing mobile-phone penetration in the country, Muralidharan, Niehaus, Sukhtankar, and Weaver make the case for leveraging this powerful tool to improve public service delivery.
India’s emerging crisis of representation
Article 81 of the Indian Constitution requires that each state receive Lok Sabha seats in proportion to its population and allocate those seats to constituencies of roughly equal size. However, the chronic unwillingness of the political class to reallocate seats in light of the country’s changing demographics has led to severe and entrenched malapportionment. In this piece, Vaishnav and Hintson explore this issue, and put forth potential solutions.
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