Fellowship to Improve National Schemes (FINS): FINS is an effort designed to support activists and organisations working to improve NREGA and other public services. We have developed this programme in partnership with the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) and are collaborating with them in 26 blocks across Rajasthan, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh. We are also collaborating with PRADAN in a few blocks of Jharkhand. Read more about FINS.
Strengthening delivery of welfare schemes to tribal communities in Andhra Pradesh: This work, in collaboration with CORD and the government of Andhra Pradesh aims to reduce exclusions in the tribal regions of Paderu ITDA. The focus in the initial phase is to work on NREGA, Rythu Bharosa, PM Kisan and Ammovodi schemes. Read more about our work in AP.
Length of the Last Mile: Workers in rural India face several hurdles and challenges to access their own hard earned money from banks and other disbursement agencies. These challenges are referred to as ‘last mile challenges’. Our recently released report “Length of the Last Mile: Delays and Hurdles in NREGA Wage Payments” presents findings from a survey conducted in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan. Read more about our study about last mile challenges.
Past Work: The first four years (2012-16) were focused on designing and testing tools for last-mile accountability. After several iterations, the project arrived at a toolkit that could be used by CSOs to (1) Make public services more transparent to the beneficiaries (2) Collect timely feedback from the beneficiaries for grievance redressal (3) Analyse data proactively to identify problems and (4) Build a community to redress grievances collectively.
In the second phase, we began the project Combating Corruption with Mobile Phones with a collaborative venture with CORD, several grassroots NGOs and independent researchers were implemented from 2017-19. The project was supported by the Tata Trusts. You can further see our past work here.