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Tag Search: “public service delivery”

Digital agricultural extension: Stimulating or supplanting farmers’ interactions?

Governments and non-profit organisations are increasingly reliant on using digital technologies to deliver information. In the context of agricultural extension in Gujarat, this article looks at wheth...

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Caste-based differences in self-help groups: Evidence from a rural livelihood programme

The National Rural Livelihood Mission aims to increase income and improve wellbeing for rural households. Using survey data from nine states in India, this article analyses the existence of caste-base...

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Access to health insurance in India: Direct and spillover effects

Many low-income households in India have been pushed into poverty by high healthcare costs. Uptake of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, the government-run national health insurance programme for bel...

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Using personalised information delivery to improve uptake of emergency government benefits

Although many governments introduced additional benefits as part of existing welfare schemes for Covid-19 relief, there is often a significant gap between the introduction of, and access to these bene...

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On the perils of embedded experiments

There is growing interest in ‘embedded experiments’, conducted by researchers and policymakers as a team. Aside from their potential scale, the main attraction of these experiments is that they seem t...

  • Perspectives

Budget 2022-23: The elephants and the ostrich

Analysing India’s 2022-23 Union Budget, Neeraj Hatekar contends that MNREGA, the rural job guarantee programme that has not received additional funding vis-à-vis 2021-22 budget estimates, should be le...

  • Perspectives

Improving public service delivery by fixing payment systems

Fixing how funds flow through the government systems grabs far fewer headlines than malnutrition, problems in the education sector, or crumbling infrastructure. In this post, Charity Troyer Moore cont...

  • Perspectives

Fatal oblivion: India's National Family Benefit Scheme

The National Family Benefit Scheme (NFBS) – which provides financial assistance to families in the event of the death of a breadwinner – has been plagued by low budget allocations, restricted coverage...

  • Perspectives

Covid-19 and growing food insecurity: Insights from rural Bihar

Emerging research shows that Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on the already undernourished and marginalised populations, by affecting their access to food and nutrition, and consumption patterns...

  • Notes from the Field

Inducing water conservation in affluent urban households

Reducing the demand for water – particularly in affluent, urban households – can lower the burden of increasing supply to ensure universal access, and sustaining it at an affordable price. Based on a ...

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PDS, National Food Security Act, and Covid-19

Introduced in 2013, the National Food Security Act (NFSA) brought about fundamental reforms in the public distribution system (PDS) and most importantly, declared a legal ‘right to food’. Based on a p...

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The changing demand for welfare in rural Pakistan

The proliferation of cash transfer programmes in developing countries has raised concern regarding a crowding-out effect on citizens' demands for investment in universal public services. Based on a ho...

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