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The Institute for Development and Communication (IDC) is a premier autonomous research, training and evaluation organisation of North-West of India.

Centre for Public Policy and Governance Studies (CPPGS)

Pre-testing of the communication material package for the project “Youth Action: Goal 2000" (1994-95) by Vandana Mahajan and Pratap Singh Bisht

Project envisages an ambitious goal of pulling out the populace of Uttar Pradesh from the backwaters of under-development in the spheres of education and health. The study was undertaken to pre-test the available communication material package. Findings reveals that the present communication package is lopsided and inadequate in its message, appeal content and outreach; gender biased. Suggests formulation of a coherent and holistic communication strategy.

Privilege of polygamy and the ability to divorce wives at unilateral direction under the Muslim Personal Law have attracted the attention of the various sections of society. survey of various Hindu and Muslim individuals on Muslim Personal Law – polygamy and divorce- to understand their views on the issue. The introduction of uniform civil code (UCC) has been favored by some Indians as this will help in mitigating gender biases and nurture Indian culture, thus helping in the promotion of patriotic sentiments. The Indians against the UCC contend that it would hamper the basic philosophy of Indian Constitution, which nourishes unity in diversity and communal harmony. The inclusion of UCC could generate feelings of identity crises among minorities as it points to the intolerance amongst different religious groups.

Report highlights the inter-linkages between economic conditions and socio-cultural status of scheduled castes in Punjab; poverty, discrimination and self-perception of lowly status are the main characteristics attributed to the scheduled castes. Economic packages and benefit schemes will not work in isolation from the social transformation of their status. The stamp of “impurity” placed on SCs during their birth carries on throughout their lives affecting various social and cultural domains.

Propose amendments to the accounting and budgeting system of Panchayabyti Raj Institutions (PRIs) under the provisions of the Punjab Panchayati Raj Act, 1994. To ensure the proper accountability and transparency, these institutions need to have an appropriate and simple system of Accounting and Budgeting installed. The accounts maintained should show the total amounts of receipts and payments of cash, surpluses or deficits and the state of the financial health at the end of each year.

The purpose of formulating a state plan for the child enables the states to give expression to specific circumstances in the plan document along with the goals identified by international forums. Emphasis is placed on the quality of services, rehabilitation of children who are victims of violence, improvement in the status of women in terms of education, health and employment. The children of landless laborers and the migratory population, Scheduled Castes and backward families are to be targeted for overall improvement. Special attention shall be paid to school drop-outs, the deviant, the physically handicapped, orphans, drug addicts and street children.

Suggests an increase in rent of the properties of the municipal committees could help them with their financial position. The abolition of house tax in Punjab and the scrapping of octroi on the anvil have severely affected the finances of municipalities; identifies norms to increase the rents of municipal properties so as to improve their financial position; suggests ways to reduce the gap between the demand of rent and the actual recovery of rent from the rented property.

Drug addiction as one of the most pervasive and intransigent problems being faced by the society, particularly in the border districts of Punjab; an exhaustive appraisal is being undertaken in the four border districts of Punjab i.e. Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran and Ferozepur with an idea of exploring the dynamics associated with the phenomenon of substance abuse and dependence and to suggest policy changes.

Police Station Visitors Week (PSVW) was organized 21 countries participated; more than 1100 police stations welcomed 6000 citizens to assess their services in their respective countries. In the Indian sub-continent alone, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Maldives, and Pakistan participated and nearly 250 police stations were visited by more than 3300 citizens in their respective locations. PSVW offered the citizens an opportunity to assess the services provided by the police, gain insight into the police station functioning, and also to become better acquainted with the police establishment; a unique event organised to assess the quality of service delivered in the participating police departments, to identify some of the good practices in use by the police, and to strengthen the accountability of police to the local citizens whom they serve. The assessment was made by the local citizens on global indicators of policing standards; aims to improve the trust and cooperation between the police and the public, leading to greater safety and access to justice. The Police Station Visitors Week is a public participatory assessment of the local police stations to promote global standards and share good practices of service delivery nationally, regionally and globally.

Growth performance in Punjab: Punjab is an agrarian State with the highest contribution of agriculture to GSDP in the country; it has seen a degree of the Lewisian transfer of employment from the agricultural to the non-agricultural sectors. The growth in the agricultural, industrial, and services sectors has been slower than that of India, while the industrial sector in the 1990s did done better than the rest of the country on account of construction activities. The growth of the secondary and the tertiary sectors though credible, has been slower than the country, particularly, in the recent decades.
Policy Initiatives: Government should attract investment to boost employment in the secondary and tertiary sectors, on the pattern of other developed States; State has attained the degree of the Lewisian transfer of employment from the agriculture to the non-agriculture sector.
Agriculture process and problems: Punjab alone contributed 38.7 (wheat) per cent and 22.1 (rice) per cent to the Central pool of food grains; average value of the agricultural output per hectare in Punjab was 75% higher than the all India average; and labour productivity in Punjab was almost five times the all India average; remarkable growth of agricultural production in the State was mainly the result of intensification and modernization of farming and specialization in rice and wheat cultivation. The intensification of cultivation was achieved by expanding irrigation to almost 100% area; recent years generated a number of negative consequences, viz; slowing down of the yield growth of the major crops; ground water depletion, farm debt and debt related farmers’ suicides. Policy Initiatives: suggests measures to counter the agrarian crisis: Water Management in Agriculture: depletion of water table; the experts are not in favour of the continuous cultivation of paddy crops; farmers are not ready to replace this profitable crop; decline in the ground water table can be halted even without reducing the area under rice cultivation by taking a few simple policy measures: proper pricing of power supplied to tube well: once power being supplied to the tube wells is properly priced, the use of ground water for rice cultivation will automatically rationalized.
Research on reducing water use in Rice cultivation: research efforts should be to invent/select/discover rice varieties that use less water, but give same yield.
Credit and Suicides: to counter rising suicides among farmers, the cooperative credit system should be strengthened in the State; farm machinery should be available on rent at the time of need.
Horticulture in State: adopt Maharashtra model to promote commercial agricultural crops.
Agro-processing industry: promote agro-processing industry and ease the norms to attract investment in this sector; axes should be lower for procuring raw materials for agro-processing industry; allocate more funds for research and extension works in agriculture; public and private research should be made more pro-farmer.
Industrial development and policy in Punjab: Punjab needs to concentrate on the industries where it has a comparative advantage and rejuvenation and modernization of traditional industries cotton, textiles (including hosiery and knitwear), food processing, dairy, leather, hand tools etc.
Policy Initiatives: Industrial policy of Punjab has to focus on support, credit extension, modernization and revamping of the SSI units. To revive the closed state units State should invite some big industrial units to run and invest in such units which will create employment for the local people.
Labour market and employment generation in Punjab: done well in diversifying employment structure; employment growth has been slightly higher in Punjab than all India average; construction sector is the main driver of employment growth in the last two decades.
Policy Initiatives: craft policies to ensure remunerative jobs in the urban areas; educated workforce is also moving away from agriculture and migrating towards urban areas. Agriculture and rural tourism should be developed to absorb the rural manpower.
Education and employment in Punjab: unemployment rate is still higher for the rural females in the State than the all-India average; in the rural areas, secondary sector (which includes manufacturing and construction) employs both the low skilled and medium skilled workers while the service sector employs workers with high education level; in urban Punjab, the tertiary sector employs workers with medium and high educational levels, while the secondary sector employs workers with low and medium educational level.
Policy Initiatives: cooperative dairy development may an effective policy intervention to employ low skilled females in rural areas; in the urban areas the loan schemes for the self-employment be encouraged.
Comparing employment and education of SC and non-SC women workers: employment outcomes of the female workers in rural Punjab at two points of time between 1993-94 and 2011-12, showed the evident shift of women from the primary to the secondary and tertiary sectors. The change in the rural structure of employment has not been able to better the employment status of rural women in Punjab, putting SC women at even worse positions as compared to the non-SC women workers; see shift of employment to modern sectors but there has been no simultaneous improvement in the quality of employment; strategy deployed for development has done little to improve the employment status of women workers.
Policy Initiatives: ensure decent working conditions for the female workers by ensuring social protection; special skill development programmes may be organised for such female workers who want to upgrade their skills. Upgrade the skills of the workers in art and craft, etc.: special programmes should be started for the training of SC women in the rural areas in arts/crafts, etc. Growth dynamics, poverty and inequality in Punjab: incidence of poverty in Punjab remained almost half or less than half of the all-India levels during the whole period. The pattern of poverty in Punjab across sectors is opposite to the pattern of poverty in India. Poverty is high in the rural India compared to the urban India during the whole period. During 1993-94 to 2004-05, the poverty decreased for both Punjab and India, except, rural Punjab; however, the rate of decrease in Punjab was less than in India. During the last seven years from 2004-05 to 2011-12, the rate of reduction in poverty increased in both India and Punjab, but still, it was less in Punjab than in India. Consumption inequality in Punjab is less than the average for India during the whole the period. Inequality in the rural areas is less than the urban areas of both Punjab and India. The level of average monthly per capita consumption expenditure was higher in the urban areas compared to the rural areas.
Policy Initiatives: continue the scheme like Atta-Dal as beneficial to the rural masses; economic empowerment of the poor people in the rural and the urban areas may be ensured by providing suitable skills and one-time financial assistance to start new business. State finances and development priorities in Punjab: Gross fiscal deficit – NSDP ratio – is quite high for Punjab; moved from a revenue surplus State in 1986-87 to a revenue deficit State; share of developmental expenditure in the total capital expenditure has gone up; total plan expenditure has gone up; higher level of revenue deficit; burden of imbalance in the revenue account has fallen on the capital account; borrowing has become one of the major components of capital receipts; this would place the State in a vicious cycle Expenditure on interest payment and servicing of debt on revenue account has gone up; need bold thinking on the issue of debt; mobilization of the State’s own tax revenue.
Policy Initiatives: Punjab selected public borrowings route to meet its financial obligations. Fresh taxes have not imposed in the State in the recent past. State must look for other alternate sources of raising its own tax revenue, like taxing electricity and taxing goods and passengers. There are also other sources to mobilize revenue like tax on property transactions. Though improvements have been noticed in the debt sustainability indicators, but the State can enter debt the trap phase any time in the absence of mobilization of any additional resources and rationalization of subsidies and public expenditure, including, curbing of unproductive expenditure. Most of the public enterprises in the State are incurring losses. it is incumbent on the part of the State governments to make adequate budgetary provisions for meeting the financial obligations in case the necessity arises. State government should launch an aggressive strategy for financial consolidation by augmenting additional sources of revenue, particularly, tax revenues by: imposing fresh taxes, increasing tax rates, and Improving tax compliance by simplifying tax procedures, preparing research based case for additional resources from the Centre. Increasing non-tax revenue by: restructuring public enterprises, implementation of disinvestment programmes in the State public enterprises, and winding up of the chronically sick enterprises.
Devising and implementing a policy to: contain and prune public expenditure, mitigate unproductive public expenditure, and rationalize subsidies.
Health status and health care in Punjab: better health status than the national averages; needs some additional concerted efforts; health infrastructure of Punjab is not evenly distributed across the State; NRHM progress is uneven; aggregate health achievement of Punjab conceals its glaring social inequality; health inequality based on gender is alarmingly high; health care system in Punjab has been highly privatized.
Policy Initiatives: upgrade skills of doctors and paramedic staff periodically; enhance health sector funding; seeing the shift in disease pattern, a pro-poor approach in the State’ health Policy must be introduced; concentrate on quality improvements in public health Infrastructure; take steps for proper implementation of a pro-poor health insurance in the State; improve Governance in State Health Sector; rent-seeking behaviour of the health employees be curbed; techno-centric health interventions and mushrooming of private health sector should be monitored; increasing community participation through PRIs and ULBs in the supervision of health centers. State of education in Punjab – Changing spatial differences: Education can never flourish without a State-planned development of the sector; the government must have a vision; Twelfth Plan seeks to improve the quality of school education and overall development of government schools and higher institutions.
Policy Initiatives: bring qualitative improvement in the Technical Education and upgradation of the infrastructure of government and Technical Institutions; Skill development initiatives have to be in consonance with the demand of local industries/service sector; fill the vacant posts of the teachers in the schools; bridge the gap in the rural and urban areas in the skilled workforce; Social sector spending in the State needs to be Improved. Our analysis reveals that the social sector spending in the State has remained consistently low despite the fact that social outcomes in the State leave much to be desired, especially, in terms of welfare of women and socially and economically weaker groups like SCs.
Social sector spending in the State is not only very low in aggregate but also in terms of each of its major components like, health, nutrition and education. Increase the coverage of the targeted population under majority of the programmes: most schemes cover a very minuscule section of the targeted population; Mid-Day Meal Scheme covers merely 15 per cent of the intended beneficiaries; coverage is especially low in the case of the Targeted Public Distribution Programmes and pension schemes; with the advent of MGNREGA, the participation in the public works programme has improved, however, it remains behind most of the other developed States of India. Decrease leakages from the scheme and improve service delivery: reveals large number of leakages from these social protection schemes in the case of Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS); needs to be plugged; in the case of ICDS scheme, Punjab lagged behind all the other States of India in terms of each of the component of the programme; need to be improved upon. Decrease the exclusion errors in the scheme: exclusion errors in most of the social protection schemes in the State are very high compared to all India average. In Punjab, the schemes have failed to affect the economically and socially weaker groups in the society like, the SCs who continue to remain at the bottom; better monitoring and evaluation is needed.
Benchmarks for inclusive growth: benchmark for the level and inclusiveness of economic development has been evaluated by comparing it with the economies of seven other high income States of India; report has attempted to find out Punjab’s position on inclusiveness in terms of percolation of the benefits of development to all the sections of society. In terms of per capita income alone, Punjab is at the bottom and Maharashtra is at the top; in terms of per capita expenditure, Punjab is number two; in terms of ownership/use of consumer durable goods and living facilities, Punjab is at the top and Maharashtra at the bottom. In terms of degree of inclusiveness of economic growth Punjab is at the top and Maharashtra at the bottom. The inadequacy of the raw per capita income figures as the sole indicator of the level of development of the Indian States clearly emerges from the analysis.

Punjab is one of the leading States in India in terms of economic performance; structural shift away from agriculture is visible for all social groups, for the SC workers, the shift is towards construction sector, for the OBCs, towards manufacturing, construction and services; and for the upper caste workers, shift towards construction and service sector. Agricultural growth has raised concerns; slow growth in the crop yields, accumulation of farm debt resulting in farmers’ suicides to the negative impact on natural resources large scale; exodus of the farmers from agriculture; and environmental consequences like, growth of pesticide residues in water, milk, vegetables and grains; and air pollution caused by the smoke generated by rice and wheat straw burning. People’s Well-being: Poverty and inequality: differences in the levels of consumption expenditure, poverty and inequality among the Social groups in the state; non-SCs having higher levels of consumption, lower levels of poverty than the SCs, and the increasing inequality in consumption among SCs while decreasing among the non-SC populace in the state.
Social development: Education and health: social indicators do not complement the economic performance of the state; fails to transfer economic gains into social outcomes for its people; improvement in social indicators have impact on the well-being of its people. Education Status: non-enrolment is an equally important problem confronting the State, the gender gap exists but is lower than that in other States; social group inequality is also visible in terms of the dropout rate in the State; greater role for the government in ensuring quality education and skills enhancement through government run institutions. Health outcomes: Gender disparity in health outcomes is visible. Physical infrastructure for health care as per national norms available in the rural Punjab but lags in a few parameters like number of PHCs for each CHC; morbidity in the rural areas below the national average. Inclusive growth: Gender and Scheduled Castes: access to health services is an area of concern; average expenditure on health is higher in rural Punjab compared to other States; the poor in Punjab are burdened with high expenditure in public as well as private hospitals.
Gender disparity: pronounced bias against the girl child in terms of health seeking, duration. Schemes (like cash transfer schemes) have to be more in line with the real situation, less rigid to ensure larger participation. Social indicators show large social and gender inequities in Punjab that need to be addressed; high degree of deprivation and vulnerability among the socially and economically weaker group—the scheduled castes; social protection has received very limited attention over time. Fiscal Health of Punjab: nature of expenditure: Punjab requires a paradigm shift; an urgent need to enhance agricultural productivity; and released after increase in the productivity of the grains can be utilised for crop diversification and non-farm activities; would have arrested mindless urbanisation. Public policy has not paid any attention to these traditional industries in terms of technology transfer, skill upgradation, marketing and maintenance of environmental standards.
As regards social development, the State of Punjab could not transform its vast enterprising human resource into an asset.; educational system is required to impart quality education. Guiding principle in education and health sector should have been to improve education and health outcomes rather than allow privatisation. In governance, the need is to shift from disinvestment to productive investment; a need to rationalise these subsidies in the background of the environmental challenges from the rice-wheat crop cycles, and the pressures from the global institutions for the agriculture sector. Agriculture sector needs support; power subsidies is a question that should be transparently answered; imbalance in the long-term development expenditure that has been compromised in the State as a result of meeting deficit targets, must be corrected.

Growth rate per se may not be a valid indicator to measure the well-being of the people. The choice of measures reflects the purpose and values to be attained from the growth processes; measure beyond questions is not only lethargic, but dangerous; stop asking questions like, what are we measuring and for what outcomes, it may reinforce the status quo and legitimise discriminations, deprivations and poverty. The measures are loaded with ideology and shape our vision, choices and preferences. Discusses the indicators with inferences and paradox to provides correct pictures of political economy of Punjab with reasons and arguments. GDP and fiscal deficit misnomer:this inference leads to wrong policy formulation and does not help us to make an assessment of the current well-being and sustainability aspects of the growth and entails the wrong policy decisions.Citizens’ well-being:Punjab’s relative position as compared to other States is rather good; performance on poverty eradication and reduction in disparities is better than many others.Human Development Index: Punjab ranked amongst the first five States, and on hunger index, it ranked on the top with least hunger; comparisons reinforce that Punjab is not an autonomous unit; vision needs to be located amidst the global, regional, and national context.
Capital City: An Investment Pole:Punjab which is without a capital city, lost the space that could have acted as a driver of growth; missed ‘Information Technology Revolution’ as it did not have advantage of its own growth pole; Punjab has suffered a major setback in the neoliberal globalised economy as well as in getting its legitimate share in the revenue generated in Chandigarh.Paradoxes of Development:Punjab represents peculiar development paradoxes; its performance on the well-being indicators is competitive with other States, while its own trajectory of development is riddled with stagnation, unable to carve out its own path in a neoliberal globalised economy; worthwhile to understand the main drivers of growth and to have an idea as to how these will shape in future? Has this growth been inclusive? Who are the beneficiaries of this growth?Developed agriculture, but no organic linkages with other Sectors:share in GSDP of agriculture was around 40 per cent till 1990s; got reduced to around 22 per cent 2010; share of industry reached around 30 per cent in 2010s; major increase in 2010s has been in the share of services in GSDP, (48%). Promote small scale Agriculture-led Industrial base:prescription was crop diversification and diversify the economy by a large inter-sectoral shift to high productivity flexible agriculture.Gap between economic gains and non-economic outcomes:nature of economic development could not correspond with the social development indicators. Punjab has high per capita income and its per capita consumption expenditure has been higher than all-India; gap between the economic gains and social outcomes. The Social development index: amongst 14 major States, Punjab ranked at the bottom, in terms of real per capita expenditure on social sector. In Punjab, 9.9 per cent of the GSDP is spent on social sector, whereas, in Haryana, it is 23 per cent, 22 per cent in Tamil Nadu; only 2.15 per cent was spent on education, 0.26 per cent on labour protection, 0.18 per cent on nutrition, 2.3 per cent on social security, and 4.8 per cent on health of the GSDP (2009-10) in Punjab.

Paradox is it has high per capita income, but does not commensurate with social development index; on the inclusive growth, it has low poverty level in general, but poverty amongst the Scheduled Castes is high; Punjab has to refocus on the non-economic factors for economic outcomes. Paradigm shift in Governance: need is to shift from disinvestment to productive investment, from retrenchment to employment generation, from subsidy reduction to rationalization of subsidies, and from anti-corruption drives to corruption-free governance.

For the realization of full citizenship, ‘activisednation’ is yet to be fully transformed into civil society. need to conduct research about the relationship between the activised nation, civil society and the citizens’ rights; Punjab has to reinvent itself to ensure the rights of the poor and underprivileged instead of promoting metropolitan regimes, facilitate foreign direct investment, withdraw subsidies and encourage privatization in social development.

Objective to prepare Village Development Plans (VDPs); to reduce the level of disparity among the SC and non-SC population in the villages. 50 villages having more than 50 percent SC population are identified as model villages are identified in district Sri Muktsar Sahib. In the first phase, IDC has prepared the VDPs for 50 villages in 2015-16. In second phase, it is destined to develop Management Information System (MIS) for these villages, and the third phase constitutes of submission of an evaluation report of the whole scheme, since inception to the implementation.

Vision 2030 document is prepared with overarching strategy focusing on socially just growth, redistributive sustainable development and good governance; to achieve various targets, SDGs have been divided into four pillars.

Theme covering issues of decent work, industry and innovation, ending hunger and ensuring food security, achieving sustainable development, life on land, climate change and affordable and clean energy for all.  Findings:By 2030 growth rate of 11 percent can be expected, only if there is acceleration in industrial sector and services sector; workforce needs to be shifted from agriculture to industrial sector to enable remunerative employment and absorb increasing workforce (industrial sector projected to employ 25 percent of workforce by 2030); R&D should be promoted in sectors which are labour intensive;  for inclusive growth agriculture should be linked with industrial development through high value added crops, processing and marketing; to attain industrial growth industries with strong forward and backward linkage should be promoted; some of the industries in which the state has a good base should be focused; an urgent need to improve rural infrastructure for farmers and industries, invest in agricultural research and improve agriculture extension services;  To ensure food security current growth rate of rice and wheat yield need to be sustained; focus should be on promoting crop diversification towards maize, cotton, sugarcane, fodder, pulses, fruits, vegetables and agro forestry and on horticulture; target of doubling income of small farmers would require a shift to dairy farming; efforts are required to improve water & nutrient efficiency , improve soil health, reduce ground water use, refining water saving technologies, construction of water harvesting structures and water recharge structures and emphasize  short duration varieties of crops; focus on sustainable management of forests to combat desertification, promote agro-forestry and mitigate adverse effects of climate change. To achieve sustainable development and clean and affordable energy for all, share of renewable energy in total energy mix would have to be increased to 30 percent by 2030.

Themes covered include ending poverty in all its forms; providing clean water and sanitation facilities for all; making cities and human settlements safe and resilient; provide health and education to all; reduce inequality and gender equality. Findings: to achieve zero poverty and below 5 hunger by 2030, growth rate of 10 percent is required; state needs to revamp existing poverty alleviation programmes by promoting transparency, accountability; mitigating corruption and plugging leakages; dedicated funds for poor in Flagship programmes like Make in India, Skill India etc. for the benefits to reach the poor; the state needs to ensure sanitation facilities for the poor under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, and housing for poor by 2022.Improving ownership of land and property of poor, make poor youth employable, create employment opportunities for poor in sectors other than agriculture, and ensure financial inclusion of the poor; to ensure clean water and sanitation for all; demand-responsive and decentralized service delivery and community involvement are required; effective grievance redressal and public information system should be evolved; needs to promote public private partnership, and convergence with relevant departments is required.  Comprehensive policy for overall urban development to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe and resilient is an urgent need of the hour; master plans for cities should be prepared and their proper implementation should be ensured. While focusing on urban poor, 20-25 percent of the developed land in all housing projects should be earmarked for urban poor. Slum development policy should focus on prevention of further slum formation, while municipal capacities should be strengthened through better devolution of taxes. Focus on restructuring government health institutions and health worker’s production and management systems, legislation to regulate private health service providers should be enacted, Information Technology solutions to be put in place to record and report every health transaction; large investments should be made to revitalize government health sector. To bring structural integration so that every school has adequate number of teachers and educational facilities; redefine the scope of Right to Education (RTE) by making early childhood education part of RTE, universalize elementary education, and BetiBachaoBetiPadhao (BBBP) programme, and making secondary and higher secondary education part of RTE. Every school should have appropriate infrastructure and learning resources. For skill development   the need is to strengthen institutional mechanism for delivery of skills, improve quality of trainers or instructors, etc. To achieve inclusive education for all, specific positioning of boys and girls in rural/urban and SC/ST populations need to be reflected in policy agendas. Specific gender needs would require inter-sectional and multi-sectoral strategies.  Gender social relations need to change rather than providing women the same rights as men. To institutionalise gender centres, creation of gender hubs and gender capital is suggested. Mainstreaming 32 percent of the population comprising of the Scheduled castes requires   redistribution and provision of ownership of public land to SC and poor including women headed households. Similarly, SC and poor should be provided ownership rights of the land cultivated by them.  Prioritise delivery to SC malnourished children under the ICDS programme. Social security schemes to be strengthened for the benefit of SC households. Similarly, schemes meant to improve their education status need to be strengthened and be made part of the tracking system. There is a need to create conditions and opportunities for making livelihood/housing/sanitation/drinking water/electricity/ education/health accessible to Scheduled Castes and population living below the poverty line. Building institutional capacities to provide for gender safety, livelihood, access to resources (assets, credit, services, and rights).

Covers the issue of peace, justice for all and building strong institutions that can deliver justice for all Findings: Suggests convergence of engaged governance with e-governance for ease of business, trust-building, efficient and accountable delivery of services; right to services and accountable grievance redressal system should be put in place; border dynamics need to shift from drug smuggling to commodity trade; focus to be given to prevent crime, casualties and injuries with shift from crime management to crime prevention. Institutional alternatives like SAANJH and improving physical infrastructure of police stations would go a long way in achieving so; there is a need for setting up new and re-demarcation of the Police Stations; scientific data collection system related to road safety, cross-border terrorism, preventing atrocities against children and SCs and controlling drug abuse and smuggling are other relevant steps to be taken.

Mobilization of resources for development and prioritization of government expenditure; strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development are the themes dealt with.  Findings: Resources of Government of Punjab need to improve through improvement in own tax to GSDP ratio; should seek a share in revenue generated in its capital city Chandigarh as per Reorganization Act; Central government should support debt waiver and investment promotion;  State should concentrate towards creation of one or more State level theme based  Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) to leverage capital market financing for meeting the funding requirement/resource gap of select and important social/infrastructural  schemes /projects of the state. Lastly, the state should find ways of tapping Punjabi Diaspora to partner in growth of Punjab.

Book covers the development dynamics and its challenges for the state of Punjab; analysis is provided both sector wise and issue wise, with focus on social and economic differentials. Chapter 1 deals with various indicator of growth and paradoxes of development; chapter 2 deals with centre-state relations in financial matters; chapter 3 discusses general trends in growth in the state over time, industrial development and policy; chapter 4 takes stock of the growth in wheat and rice production in the state and its contribution to the central pool, issues on agricultural for state; chapter 5 provides situational analysis of the educational outcomes in the state using NSS data; chapter 6 examines the employment trends in the state and the issue of livelihood, Relation between education/ skills and employment is also dealt with; chapter 7 looks into achievements in health sector of Punjab and inequality; chapter 8 analysis the demographic statistics and variables in Punjab; chapter 9 deals with gender differentials, highlights Punjab specific gender issues and some policy prescriptions; chapter  10 deals with the growing urbanization, probable ways to tackle the problem; chapter 11 looks into the differentials of socially marginalized groups/castes in employment, occupation and health and education status.

EoDB can be measured through various indicators reflecting procedures for clearances and approvals for setting up a business. Single Window System (SWS) is important for simplifying the procedures for online approvals; fewer documentation requirements and proper coordination within and among departments. Punjab was ranked 1st by World Bank in setting up a business in 2015. Punjab and Andhra Pradesh were the first two states starting the single window initiative in India. Punjab lagged behind other reform areas such as obtaining construction permit, allotment of land, complying with labour regulations, obtaining infrastructure related utilities, tax reforms, carrying out inspections and enforcing contracts was given the status of “Acceleration Required”. Punjab improved in the areas of SWS, access to information and transparency enablers, environment reforms, tax reforms, inspection reforms, construction permit and complying with labour regulations; performed poorly in case of getting electricity connection, enforcing contracts and availability of land; lagged in other reform areas due to weak online infrastructure; lack of proper access to information and awareness and lack of technical skill among staff leading to discouragement of online processes.

Compares the fiscal incentives offered by the State of Punjab to industrial State Haryana to critically evaluates the implications of these measures; analysis takes into account the severalFiscal Incentives to units announced in Punjab industrial policy 2017.  Objectives are to explores: quantum of investment subsidies in terms of net SGST in various areas of these states; interest subsidies for backward areas/districts; credit linked capital subsidy scheme (CLCSS) of GOI; free charged under Collateral Free Credit Guarantee Trust for Micro and Small enterprises (CGTMSE) Scheme; review the assistance provided for technology acquisition; analyse the Exemptions on Change in land Use (CLU) and External Development Charges (EDC); study the Power subsidies, etc. in the two states; analyse the impact of fiscal incentives on employment; Outcome: Report on comparative study on the Fiscal Incentive Structure in Punjab and Haryana for units belonging to MSME, Large and Mega Sectors.

Enterprise Promotion Policy (EPP), 2015 is envisaged to help Haryana achieve the status of a prominent investment destination.  Objectives of EPP are to promote Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) and enhance competitiveness of the industry by reducing the cost of doing business. The performance of the States on EoDB is reviewed in detail in this study by critically evaluating the practices being adopted; the initiatives taken by the Haryana Government to improve its ranking on EoDB are discussed in detail. Focus of this study is to look at the steps taken by Haryana in the area of Ease of Doing Business. Reviewed the steps taken by the Indian States on the basis of reform areas/indicators set by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP); role of the Central agency responsible for giving ranking becomes critical in picking the various parameters and designing the requirements of documents crucial for various clearances. A uniform system cannot work considering local circumstances; the role of a technical expert can become important in designing a suitable format; the EoDB with clear emphasis on simple and online procedures and transparent way to track the applications helped in resolving issues related to clearances/approvals; all the applications pertaining to industrial clearances from various departments are routed through Haryana Enterprises Promotion Centre (HEPC) that has nodal officers to ensure time-bound clearances under one roof. www.investharyana.in, an online single window solution has been developed for all business related clearances. Haryana Government is committed to give all business clearances related to labor, power, pollution, Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), etc., in maximum 45 days.

Study reviews various schemes of Pradhan MantriKisanSampadaYojana pursued by the MoFPI to assess their implications with the objective to suggest the required modifications; to assess the possibilities of success of such policies under various paths of development. Study aims to identify the constraints faced by the SC/ST entrepreneurs to avail assistance under the schemes of the MoFPI;to identify the areas of strength of the SC/ST entrepreneurs in the food processing sector;to identify the state/regions/localities with high concentration of SC/ST population having the ability to take up entrepreneurial activities for better targeting to reach out to the SC/ST entrepreneurs to encourage them to avail the MoFPI assistance;to suggest different models for group intervention like formation of groups in line with SHGs and such other strategy to attract investors from the SC/ST categories;to suggest ways to make the schemes more attractive to the SC/ST entrepreneurs; and to suggest desirable changes in operational guidelines of various schemes of the MoFPI to make them conducive to attract the SC/ST entrepreneurship. The objective of food processing and food supply chain is to increase value addition and also services to reduce wastage and enhance shelf life of food and livestock produce. Food processing includes the entire value chain starting from inputs for the agriculture sector; has the strong backward and forward linkages with the logistics facilities such as transport, warehousing, storage, wholesale and retail outlets and hotels/restaurants units and the consumers. This is crucial for the productive employment generation of the economy as a whole because a large share of workers is engaged in this entire food supply chain in the Indian economy. The purpose is to increase the farmers’ income, reduce farm wastage and create huge employment opportunity. Since most of these activities are carried out in rural and labour-intensive sectors, it will generally help in the up-lifting of masses

Main objective of the study was to analyse the revenue and expenditure of municipal corporations/committees of Punjab in the year 2018-19; the size distribution and density of population of thee 167 municipal corporations/committees was analysed. Punjab government took many measures to expand the number of municipal bodies so that every urban area could have a municipal council; number of municipalities increased from 60 in 1948-1949 to 112 by 1955-56; the number further increased to 175 by 1963-64. Punjab Municipal Corporation Act 1979, resulted in the establishment of many more corporations in Punjab

Ascertains the impact of enforcement of prohibition in Haryana; finds that prohibition has become an administrative programme, rather than a social, political and community-based reforms programme.

Suggests norms to increase the rent of the properties of the municipal committees so as to mobilise resources for them; ways and means to reduce the gap between the total demand of rent and the actual recovery from the rented property; findings reveal that the agreements entered into by the municipalities and the tenants are not property executed. It has been recommended that all agreements should be properly drafted, renewed in time and registered in a court of law.

Safety, security and equitable access to justice are pre requisites for a functional democracy. Without a countable justice system protection of livelihood, provision of entitlements to people on the margins and safeguarding human rights is not possible. It is essential to address the risk of crime, and improve provisions for the security of individuals by creating effective justice institutions and mechanisms that aim at creating a secure crime-free society. Existing Criminal Justice System is insensitive to the needs of its multicultural citizenry, particularly in the context of gender; yet to adopt institutional human rights standards; dynamic interaction between criminal justice system, informal justice mechanisms, civil society interests and citizens in peace, conflict and post-conflict shall lead to evolving parameters for formulation of state policy towards building a crime-free and peaceful society. Aims to develop indicator clusters and a framework of analysis for citizen-centric delivery of justice within the criminal justice system; evolving the participatory mechanism for institutional capacity-building of criminal justice; defining parameters for state policy for participatory, transparent and accountable delivery of justice with a focus on sexual violence.

Report assesses the Right to Service (RTS) Act to expose the shortcomings, leakages and makes suggestions to fix these; concludes that there is a need for improvement in coordination between the RTS Commission and the supporting departments; lack of public awareness on grievance redressal formats under RTS. Institutional effectiveness of the existing mechanisms has been affected by the shortage of regular and trained staff, lower awareness about the RTS among the staff and failure in displaying information regarding rights protected under the Act and timelines. Recommends improved intra-departmental coordination, brochures containing guidelines of the RTS for the staff members and systematic record management of the RTS.

Private sector accounts for more than 60 per cent of total higher education institutions in India; higher education institutions face acute problems in terms of shortage of dedicated academic faculty, required infrastructure, outdated and redundant curriculum unsuitable for market demands, lack of monitoring; the percentage of employable graduates is very low, primarily because of the gap between the requirements of industry and global market and the quality of output of higher education institutions; needs to have focus on building qualitative competitiveness as the quality of education has a wide ranging impact on employability and labour productivity. Major objective of the study concerns with the assessment of quality and efficiency of professional education being provided in universities and professional education institutions; qualitative assessment should focus on the satisfaction of the stated needs and expectation of internal and external customers. Parameters of quality are: infrastructure and learning resources; organizational climate; curriculum design and instructions; evaluation system; innovative practices for teaching; relevance and value based education; preparation of students with sense of social purpose and mission; staff faculty development programme; student support and progression; internship programmes; development of soft skills; faculty/students exchange programme; governance and institutional leadership; and university industry interface (consultancy-internship); efficiency of Higher Education was assessed in terms of productivity of students and the teaching faculty.

Evaluates the status of implementation of the Persons with Disability Act/Schemes including Punjab Divyangjan Shashaktikaran Yojana (PDSY); objectives are to know the socio-economic profile of the persons with disability; the level of awareness about the Persons with Disability Act among officials; examines the steps and measures taken by different departments to ensure the effective Implementation of the Act as well as the schemes including PDSY; finds out the gaps in effective implementation of the Act as well as the schemes including Punjab Divyangjan Sashktikaran Yojna (PDSY).

Assesses the communication needs of the stakeholders of SJVN and RHEP projects; evaluates the communication capacity of the SJVN and RHEP; makes recommendations regarding communication strategy; systems, tools and products for ensuring effective interaction with different stakeholders.

Aims to address whether the Right to Information Act (RTI) is responsive to its stakeholders and what are the necessary amendments; covers the issues in regard to the RTI’s content, deliverables and institutional arrangements for implementation of the law; need to develop a proper framework for addressing the concerns of all stakeholders. RTI created the necessary conditions for access to information to promote transparent and good governance; suggests incorporating the necessary sensitivities in the different provisions of the law.

Assess the overall quality of urban governance, especially, delivery of civic services, and to develop appropriate indicators for assessing comparative performance; Issues of governance in the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) have been the focus of attention at the national and international level since the 1990s. Governance brings in dimensions other than the internal processes of the state agencies and directs attention to the civil society not only as customers but as participants in the processes of government, including, decision making. The issues are not only about efficiency but also about responsiveness and involvement, participation and engagement of the citizens- the ‘third way’. ULBs in India have been separate juridical entities with defined spheres of autonomy recognizes the role of the ULBs for delivery of defined services. Various institutional mechanisms are also proposed / have been set up to strengthen the financial and implementation capabilities of the ULBs. What remains to be examined is whether the ULBs have delivered, and if not, why not, and what can be done about it?

Process of globalization led to transnational consolidation of views, approach and thinking on major issues – earlier considered local or national; issue could be globalization itself, or international trade or development or security versus the right to private property / privacy; process of consolidation of views has, however, not led to any uniformity or harmonization but to the polarization at the extremes of the spectrum of options. This divergence of views is dramatically expressed in the case of major dams and hydroelectric projects – the two views being ‘dams are for development’, and ‘dams are destructive; the issue is how do the agencies and organisations that exist for the building of such projects, go about planning, implementing and commissioning the projects? This is the background of the Study which has been taken up by the Institute for Development and Communication (IDC), Chandigarh, in respect of Vishnugad Pipalkoti Hydro Electric Project (VPHEP) – a run-of-the-river project in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand.

Project seeks to integrate livelihood concerns and conservation of bio-diversity at landscape level at two sites in the Rann of Katchh and Askote in Uttrakhand; participatory and ecologically sustainable mapping of landscapes and eco-sensitive areas, the focus of the project has been to introduce a decision making framework for mainstreaming conservation outcomes within high value conservation sites in production areas (forestry, fisheries, livestock and other production systems); comprehensive communication needs assessment was undertaken to understand how the project is perceived by various stakeholders, identification of gaps in communication with the stakeholders, assessment of existing communication capacity – organizational, structural, institutional and preparing a communication strategy which took note of these issues in the specific context of the two landscapes.

Seeks to integrate livelihood concerns and conservation of bio-diversity at the landscape level at two sites in the Rann of Katchh (Gujarat), and Askote in Uttrakhand. With participatory and ecologically sustainable mapping of the landscapes and eco-sensitive areas, the focus of the project has been to introduce a decision making framework for mainstreaming conservation outcomes within high value conservation sites in production areas (forestry, fisheries, livestock and other production systems); includes restorative strategies for improving conservation outcomes in production areas (e.g., forestry, livestock, agricultural plantations; needs assessment was undertaken to understand as to how the project is perceived by the various stakeholders; recommendations include suggestions for addressing the major contextual issues for creating a favourable environment for effective communication; suggestions for communication focus on addressing the needs of the stakeholders, and the supportive institutional underpinnings for communication systems and processes

Objective: assesses the effectiveness of core social protection programmes in Punjab using the following criteria: coverage; targeting efficiency; potential impact on household welfare. quantitative assessment based on two subsequent rounds of NSSO (Household Consumption Expenditure and Employment-Unemployment) data, National Family Health Survey-3 (NFHS-3) and official government documents. Findings: Punjab has consistently lagged behind other States of India in terms of social sector spending;  analysis of schemes operating at the national level, such as, Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) and Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) implies that the coverage in Punjab is very low compared to other major States and the national average;  poor households, non poor households (with monthly per capita consumption expenditure above the official poverty line) are also benefiting from the schemes; beneficiaries from SC/OBC households exceed beneficiaries from other caste groups; coverage is especially high in case of agricultural labour households and casual labour households; due to the fact that there is an element of self-selection in the schemes; heterogeneity in the effectiveness of delivery of the services; no in-depth analysis on the impact of the schemes on household welfare (unlike in other States of India), especially, for those households which belong to the economically and socially vulnerable groups.

Lack of integration of bio-diversity and livelihood considerations in development planning around bio-diversity areas have been identified as some of the root causes of the threat to bio-diversity. Bio-diversity Conservation and Rural Livelihood Improvement Project (BCRLIP) has been conceived; seeks to integrate livelihood concerns and conservation of bio-diversity at the landscape level at two sites in the Rann of Katchh and Askote in Uttrakhand; focus is to introduce a decision making framework for mainstreaming conservation outcomes within high value conservation sites in production areas (forestry, fisheries, livestock and other production systems); includes restorative strategies for improving conservation outcomes in production areas.

Traditional model of governance failed in many cases even on account of the provision of services; unexpected outcomes include: bloated, procedure driven and citizen distancing administration; mounting financial burden of administrative machinery on the state exchequer; alienation of the citizenry from administration. Attempt to evaluate the existing institutional mechanisms in terms of capacity of institutions, processes and human resources, and suggest integrative institutional model for service-delivery and grievance redressal. Objectives: evaluate the existing institutional mechanisms with reference to e-DISHA for the delivery of public services in Haryana; examine the mind-set of the employees towards service delivery and the citizens; identify and document new initiatives and best practices adopted for making governance citizen-friendly; recommend policy prescriptions and institutional mechanisms for adopting the new initiatives and best practices for making governance citizen-centric in Haryana; suggest capacity enhancing training programmes for preparing the human resources aligned with citizen-centric governance reforms in Haryana. Findings: use of ICT has reinvented and revamped the delivery of services; also improved the administration in the context of transparency, accountability, responsiveness and corruption-free administration; most important policy initiative by Haryana government is setting up of e-DISHA Centres for providing different services to the citizens under one roof; 38.8% of the beneficiaries were of the view that the State government should think of providing maximum services through the e-DISHA Centres; 23.88% of the total beneficiaries opined that more rural e-DISHA Centres should be opened for lessening the burden of existing e-DISHA Centres; on aggregate basis, 93.3% officials guided and helped the citizens; 75.2% of the total officials at e-DISHA Centres stated that their names have never figured in any complaint; improving the working of e-DISHA Centres, it is necessary to recruit more staff at the e-DISHA Centres

This audit report presents the availability and the current condition of the Traffic Enforcement Equipment with the traffic police of the districts in Punjab; explains the problems reported by the field staff of the Traffic Wing regarding the usage, handling, maintenance and efficiency of the equipment. Objectives are to analyses the state of traffic enforcement equipment available with Punjab traffic police; to report problems faced by the traffic wing; to suggest measures to improve the state of affairs in the traffic police and suggest policy measures. Findings include significant issues of traffic personnel were about posting and suggested seeking willingness of the personnel and fixed tenure of posting; some also reported lack of job satisfaction due to non-availability of resources and facilities as well as lack of interest; non-availability of funds for repairs and maintenance of equipment; poor health because of working in extreme weather conditions; the district Traffic Wings were dumped in some dilapidated and condemned structures in the police stations; the sophisticated equipment requires four-wheelers to transport,  no official vehicles were available with the Traffic Wing; issue of selective challenging by the traffic personnel was also noticed. Proper coordination between the district Traffic Wing and civil administration is required; reported that the civil administration (MC) does not pay heed to any suggestions or recommendations given by the traffic wing There should be an easy process of sanction of funds for the repair and maintenance of the equipment. Zero tolerance and consistent enforcement by police are required to change the habit of unsafe over-taking, tailgating, wrong side driving, jumping red lights and other improper actions such as parking vehicles unauthorized, negligent and rash driving; the study also suggested that each administrative district should prepare an annual ‘Road Safety Plan’ considering their area-specific concerns and needs;  plan should include dynamic identification of black spots and formulation of preventive strategies including structural reengineering such as road diversions, removing of obstructions and encroachments on roads, clearing pavements, declaring one-way and tow away zones, placing warning signs, declaring speed limits, traffic lights et cetera.

Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) is a programme of multi-interventions designed to educate citizens, electors and voters about the electoral process in order to increase their awareness and participation in the electoral processes; designed according to the socio-economic, cultural and demographic profile of Punjab and history of electoral participation in previous rounds of elections. The purpose of the SVEEP document is to evolve awareness strategies to fill the identified gaps; to suggest strategies to: increase voter turnout in the identified low turnout polling stations; increase the turnout percentage of female voters; improvement in the enrolment ratio of youth (especially 18-19 Years); increase the electoral participation of NRIs, third gender, PWDs, and migrant workers/labourers; promote ethical elections and ethical voting; empowering citizens about electoral provisions stated in the Legislature; and spreading awareness about the institutions and different aspects involved in the election process. Findings are the ECI has succeeded in improving the turnout to 77.41 percent as in 2017 Vidhan Sabha elections, as compared to 70.89 percent in 2014 Lok Sabha elections; also achieved better gender representation in the recent elections; female turnout in 2017elections was 78.16 percent as compared to 76.73 percent male voters; identified gaps for SVEEP-IV : gap in the EEP & the EP; lack of information about election related provisions in the legislature among the citizens; low voters’ turnout; lower youth enrolment; decrease in female voters’ turnout; rising urban apathy; lower turnout of the scheduled castes; less enrolment/ turnout of the third gender; low turnout of the non-resident Indians; negligible turnout of migrant workers; and, lack in recalling the ECI campaign; report also suggested need to spread awareness about the EVMs and VVPATs, organizing mock elections in educational institutions and government offices, promotion of National Voters Day on January 25th

Aims at analyzing the results of parliamentary elections in the single member constituency of Chandigarh from 1967-2014 with special reference to 16th Lok Sabha elections in 2014; objectives of the study were: to trace the emergence of new fault lines in the electoral politics in a post-colonial modern city; to explore/find out the factors responsible for the formation of these fault lines; and, to understand the electoral behavior of the people and the factors influencing the same and to find variation if any among the views of the electors based upon their location (urban, rural, slum) and ascribed status (caste). Findings Illustrates the fact that in a modern city the electoral fault lines though not completely independent of the history and tradition, however take their own course depending upon the socio-cultural and socio-economic context; emergence of new fault lines is influenced/ determined by many factors including demographic, social, economic, educational, administrative and political environment such as leadership and competence of the political players; study demonstrated that the city of Chandigarh hosted a culturally diverse population from different regions during its formative years.  Change of Administrative and political identity along with nature of leadership determined a new course of electoral fault lines in this city; ensured that whatever was politically important or unimportant in Punjab and Haryana, did not apply to Chandigarh; also demonstrated how an educated, aware and active electorate has shaped the pattern of a relatively identifiable/predictable leadership to which a majority of the electorate would identify with. The trend of leadership in the city is woven around the trait preferences of the very electorate which although consists of a diverse population with distinguished cultural background but is held together by a commonest of intellectual and progressive values; shown that in all but two instances of Lok Sabha elections, the constituency of Chandigarh has followed a national trend. In these instances, the results of Chandigarh Parliamentary constituency have been in sync with the dominance or descendance of the politically parties at the national level. Also there has been a continuous inflow of migrants in the city which has resulted in an increased population density of the existing slums and colonies. Of late these slums have acquired much significance in terms of their electoral potential. These are now the major targets of political campaigning.

Evaluates the process of implementation of the objectives of the RTI in Punjab; objective of the study was to assess the implementation of the RTI Act in the State;  examines the level of proactive disclosure of information by the public authorities and identifies the issues pertaining to RTI faced by the functionaries, including the beneficiaries/applicants and the general public; further studies the process of application and the level of awareness and perception about the RTI among the general public. The level of training and knowledge of the information officers is also assessed; an effort has been made to compare the implementation of the RTI Act in Punjab with State of Haryana, based on the information available through secondary sources; report also raises the issues which need urgent attention, for instance, need to adopt uniformed and standardized formats for information collection by the public authorities, training of the information officers, et cetera.The report “Implementation of the RTI Act in Punjab” is divided into two parts; Part I deals with ‘compliance with the proactive disclosure under section 4 of the RTI Act’; Part II explicitly details about the issues in ‘data management and reporting’, level of ‘awareness and perception about the Act’ and status of ‘information delivery mechanism’

Audit was undertaken to evaluate the working of NPL (Nabha Power Limited) Corporate Social Responsibility programmes in the 25 priority villages of districts Patiala and Fatehgarh Sahib, Punjab; to make some policy suggestions and operational recommendations to enhance its effectiveness; to study effective implementation and promptness of the ongoing NPL CSR schemes of FY 2018-2019 and 2019-2020; to identify the problems (faced by the beneficiaries and the staff); to identify the needs of the village communities for physical and social infrastructure; to analyze the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of NPL CSR activities/projects; to identify the needs for and potential of a set of economically and environmentally sustainable CSR interventions; to highlight the contribution of NPL CSR activities on improvement to the socio-economic development of the villages; to assess the impact on the community as well as the families who might have  benefitted from the CSR interventions; to make policy recommendations for the effective operation of the scheme; and, to formulate possible blueprint of 5-year Action Plan; presents an assessment of the effectiveness of NPL CSR schemes in benefitting the target groups, i.e., economically weaker sections and marginalized people of 25 priority villages; to identify the problems in the execution of the schemes and to offer possible suggestions to improve their working.

CSR activities have moved beyond merely doing charity and philanthropy to active engagement with the mainstream development concerns, helping people living on the margins. Acting as a citizen itself, corporate citizenship emphasizes the social role of a corporate in incorporating ethical values, sustainable development and citizen-centric business practices. Various need assessment studies have highlighted that the existing system of governance faces challenges in the provision of equal access to social programmes and economic packages on the basis of caste, gender and class. The recommendations propose that the developmental activities are to be identified and undertaken in a participatory manner, in consultation with the community and other stakeholders, in alignment with the national and local development priorities. While the impact of the development projects usually manifests after a time gap of completion of the project, need assessment is required before initiating any developmental activity. The study followed a citizen-centric good governance approach to ensure the active involvement of community representatives in the planning of CSR activities. Based on the village profile and findings of the need assessment exercise, detailed immediate, short- and long-term CSR intervention plans were prepared. The intervention plans have included the collective developmental issues. The activities to be undertaken under the CSR are synthesis of the development activities as desired by the villagers and contemplated as required by the researchers. The objective of the study was to identify the target village(s) under each of the three HPGCL power stations; assess the need and prepare a detailed intervention and workable action plan(s) to conduct the CSR activities.

Punjab has been unable to carve out its path in a globalized neoliberal economy. Undoubtedly, the State’s economy has been growing (with few exceptions) at an annual rate in the vicinity of 5 percent. The approach followed in the Vision 2047 document aims to take precedence over the future issues of a technology-driven, rapidly transforming society, such as prioritising goals concerning department-specific limitations, overcoming the constraints of segmented and compartmentalised administrative set- up or contemporary citizen-centric issue-based targets and strategies by focusing on the non-rigid and holistic policy prescriptions. Punjab Vision 2047 Document consists of nine departmentalised sections and sixteen socioeconomic indicator-based sub-sections focusing on the major challenges that the State is struggling with and envisages short-term and long-term strategies to overcome these challenges; main challenges identified for the citizens’ well-being are dignified living which includes Poverty; Hunger; Livelihood; and Shelter; access to quality Education; Health; Sanitation; and, Electricity; Caste; Gender (social; and, Geographical Divides; suggests a composite strategy by focusing on building income redistribution into the growth strategy itself. For instance, it has been visualised that by 2030, the income of the small farmers is to be doubled through technology upgradation, improvement in the soil quality, integrated water uses and provision of quality seeds, etc.; proposed to improve the land quality by restoring bio-diversity through deploying crop varieties in the fields, enrichment of a natural ecosystem and gene banks. A long-term strategy for diversification of the economy has been proposed by giving impetus to the modern small-scale industries and transforming the structure of employment from farm to non-farm through skill development and by building robust infrastructure; special focus has been given to developing competitive human resources by improving the quality of education and skill development; thrust of the Vision Document is to create conditions for the vulnerable sections to avail of these opportunities in an equitable manner.

Assessing the HRTS Act implementation in Haryana reveals a mixed picture; the survey findings also support the successful implementation of these initiatives and their potential to ease citizens’ access to these services. However, there remains a major loophole on the applicant’s side, i.e., the lack of awareness about the service delivery measures adopted by the government; study suggested that more efforts are needed to ensure that the citizens are well-informed about their rights and the mechanism; recommended continued education and outreach efforts to enhance the efficiency of measures like the auto-appeal system. The Act has undoubtedly improved service delivery. Still, a focused awareness campaign and targeted training for both applicants and government officials. Three categories of respondents were taken as sample units to achieve the above-said objectives; applicants who applied for the services under study; general public non-beneficiaries; department officials who handle the service delivery process and Designated Officers and Appellate Authorities; three distinct interview schedules were prepared for each category of respondents to collect relevant information.

Citizen-centricity of a service delivery model is crucial, In Punjab, three service delivery models persist: “SewaKendras“;”Connect Punjab Portal” and “Sarkar TuhadeDwaar“; study evaluated the effectiveness of service delivery mechanisms, namely Sewa Kendras, Connect Punjab Portals, and DSD, in providing various citizen services; objective was to recommend improvements to the existing citizen service delivery mechanism with a focus on: enhancing accessibility;increasing responsiveness;promoting transparency;achieving overall citizen satisfaction.Sewa Kendras lackservice clarity and accessibility;unawareness of key statutes;public facilities and amenities;maintenance and accessibility;aesthetic and professionalism;payment and transaction efficiency. Conclusion of Facility Audit: Connect Punjab Portal reflects lack of system-generated prompts and tooltips;language selection failure;transliteration Issues;unchanged content in translated sections; unfriendly interface design and user engagement; Punjabi interface functionality fail to produce results.

Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY) scheme was launched in 2009-10 on the pilot basis to enable an area-based development approach; scheme aims at integrated development of Scheduled Castes (SCs) majority villages i.e. villages having more than 50 per cent SC population; to carry out developmental activities in the identified schemes which are not covered under any of the existing Central/State/UT Government Schemes through convergent implementation; done through providing ‘gap-filling’ funds as Central Assistance under the PMAGY; examines the status of coverage and implementation of PMAGY in Punjab since inception; Evaluates the integrated development of identified villages with more than 50 per cent SC population in terms of: Availability of Adequate Infrastructure necessary for socio-economic development needs provided under the Scheme; and, Improvement in Socio-Economic Monitor able Indicators to eliminate or reduce disparity between SC and non-SC population or raise it to at least that of the National Average under identified domains2023-24

Purpose is to highlight the fact that conflict is pervasive more in the realm of incompatibilities, contradictions and scarcities, both material and non-material. There is no denying the fact that social, political and economic priorities do not altogether shift from region to region, but some do; attempts  to identify factors responsible for the origin, growth and causes of conflicts specific to each region; to understand the phenomenon of ‘conflict resolution and peace’ in the context of the specificities of historical experiences and the nature of socio-economic, political, cultural and religious formations in South Asia; suggests a need to have a dialogue to create alternatives to cater to the needs of the poor in general and the South –Asian countries in particular. This has become imperative because the specific historical conditions in these countries are throwing up new questions and challenges as posed by the socio-economic formations and developments in politics, culture and religion.

Exchange training programme for the South-Asian students has been evolved; partners in this programme would be the Department of Conflict and Peace Studies, University of Upssala, Sweden; Commonwealth Asia Centre, and IDC. This programme shall be an annual feature and shall be alternatively held in India and Sweden.

Brings police stations in the public domain through the active involvement of the community, and ensuring transparency in the justice delivery system; Altus Global Alliance visits the police stations in 20 countries of the world to evaluate the direct involvement of the police with the society.  In India, 105 police stations were visited in four States and one Union Territory; police stations were graded on the basis of quality of services, community access, and detention conditions, services provided to the women, dalits, minorities and other vulnerable sections.

Hundreds of the ordinary citizens conducted their own inspections of the police stations in 23 countries around the globe: all in a single week using a common protocol. The result is a catalogue of exemplary practices as judged by the people who depend on the police services, along with the warnings for the places where the practice falls short of the people’s expectations. More than this, the result is also a new level of communication and understanding reached between the police and the communities in hundreds of the communities worldwide.

History of Punjab is replete with its political parties entering into mergers, post-election coalitions, and pre-election alliances. Pre-election electoral alliances are a more recent phenomenon, occasional seat adjustments, notwithstanding. While the mergers have been with the parties offering a competing support base (Congress and Akalis), the post-election coalition and pre-election alliance have been among parties drawing upon sectional interests. As such there have been among two main groupings. One led by the Congress, partnered by the communists, and the other consisting of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has moulded itself to joining any grouping as per its needs. Fringe groups that sprout from time to time, position themselves vis-à-vis the main groups to play the spoiler’s role in the elections.

Globalisation and economic reforms process has changed the policing terrain; the principles and scope of criminal justice system have to be redefined; address the fear and risk of crime, improve the provisions for the security of the individuals and their living environment by creating effective justice institutions and mechanisms that aim at the creation of a crime free society; given primacy to human rights and fair delivery of justice; provides a framework to strengthen the delivery of justice; uses an inclusive approach and links the local cultural needs of justice with the global standards of human rights. The criminal justice system is viewed holistically; finds out as to how far the criminal justice system is accessible, effective and accountable; also intends to capture the level of safety and security enjoyed by the citizens and the nature of access to justice across the regions, race, caste and religion

CPRCs have been set up in Punjab as a collaborative effort of the civil society and the police. First CPRC was established in 2003 and, subsequently, these were opened in 24 police districts of the State; main focus of the evaluation is to investigate the issues relating to the ownership of the CPRCs, and to assess as to how far these participator systems have been structured for planning and management to promote transparency, accountability and ownership?

Altus in IDC

IDC was the leader in the preparation and presentation of the PSVW 2006 Global Report. The presentation ceremony took place at the Haguein April 2007.

Coordinated in four countries by the IDC office (India, Malaysia, Pakistan and South Korea). In India, 7 States/UT participated. These included Assam, Chandigarh, Kerala, Meghalaya, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttrakhand; prepares five reports: also organizes a regional workshop in Malaysia on Improving Quality of Services Delivered at the Police Stations

Included four site pilot projects, conducted in India (Chandigarh), USA (New York), Chile (Santiago) and Nigeria (Lagos); report of World Justice Indicators was presented in Vienna in July 2008; workshops in this connection were held in the US.

Evaluates an initiative by the Rajasthan Police to organize the community groups in the villages to resolve the disputes through mutual agreement among the disputing parties

Assesses the community orientation of the policing in Chandigarh with a view to mapping the citizens’ safety.

European Director, Altus Global Alliance, Anneke Osse, visited India from August 1 to August 7, 2007, and interacted with the police from Chandigarh, Punjab and Rajasthan as part of Altus’ networking programme.

IDC prepared and submitted this strategic plan for 2008-2012 incorporating the vision, goals and objectives for effective and efficient policing, attuned to promoting the safety and security of citizens; plan serve as a roadmap for policing in Punjab discusses aspects of police functioning in accordance to the Supreme Court directives for police reforms; laid down procedures for selection and promotion for functionaries at different levels, personal management system, working conditions for police personnel, community-oriented policing initiatives and oversight incorporating grievance redress mechanisms.

Unique model of community policing was conceived by IDC and it was adopted by the State Government’ IDC to evaluate this experiment, for its implementation at the sub-division and police station levels; each CPRC is an autonomous registered society collectively managed by representatives of the community and police functionaries; provides citizens dignified access to police related services and a forum to implement community oriented programmes; main focus of evaluation is to investigate the issues relating to ownership of the CPRCs and how far these participatory systems are structured for planning and management, to promote transparency, accountability and ownership.

South and South-East Asia are facing challenges of new economic formations and development in politics, culture and region; have a bearing on human security, poverty, population mobility and distributive justice. The complex multi-cultural reality intermeshed with the inequality in political economy and social dimensions between ethnic and religious groups sets the stage for violent conflict; divisive politics of colonial administration along the fault lines of racial, ethnic and religious identities were institutionalized; this document provides a framework, policy plan and country-specific strategies for youth in peace building.

How can regional specificities be represented and be meaningful to policy makers, civil society and justice practitioners, while incorporating global standards of governance? The use of performance indicators is a useful tool in assessing the rule of law. In this pilot project, IDC along with Altus partners developed and tested a set of indicators to track the functioning, efficiency and responsiveness of the justice system in selected countries. In India, IDC tested these rule of law indicators in an effort to evolve a strong basket of indicators to measures crucial aspects of rule of law such as transparency, participation and equal access to justice.

Assesses the quality of service delivered in the participating police departments, to identify some of the best practices in use by police, and to strengthen the accountability of police to the local citizens whom they serve; improve the quality of local police service according to international standards as interpreted by local communities, especially those who are poor and marginalized; contributes to improving trust and co-operation between police and communities, leading to greater reliance on police by crime victims and improved access to justice. IDC is leading the programme regionally in South and South-East Asia.

PSVW 2009 was organised from 26th to 30th October, 2009, in which 20 countries participated with more than 1000 police stations receiving nearly 5000 citizens; organised to assess the quality of the services delivered in the participating police departments, to identify some of the best practices in use by the police, and to strengthen the accountability of the police to the local citizens whom they serve;  goal to improve the quality of the local police service according to the international standards, and as interpreted by the local communities, especially those who are poor and marginalised. In India, the visits were organised by ISCARD, Community Policing Resource Centres (CPRCs), and Institute for Development and Communication (IDC), Chandigarh, India, a member of the Altus Global Alliance, in collaboration with the Police departments of Assam, Chandigarh, Kerala, Meghalaya, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Uttrakhand; also coordinated the visits in Bangladesh, Nepal, Malaysia and Pakistan. In India, 189 police stations were visited in seven different police jurisdictions; had the largest participation of the citizens with 1,459 visitors. The citizens who participated in PSVW ranged from the students to the civil society member; the visitors answered a series of questions after visit about what they observed;

administered with the working of the police personal of different ranks posted in the police station, and suggested the workforce optimization and the requirement of resources and technology.

Overview of the five countries studied bears testimony to the fact that there is a need to have multi-pronged and multi-staged democratic decentralization strategies to mitigate, the causes of violent conflict, and to put in place institutionalized mechanisms for the resolution of the conflict; this document provides a framework, policy plan and country-specific strategies for the youth in the task of peace building.

“Community Policing” is a most used yet quite confused term. Resource materials on community policing have been prepared to make the police and public properly acquainted with the concept of Community Policing, and give proper orientation to the stakeholders with its various dimensions and parameters; an attempt has been made to provide the basic information about what the Community policing is all about.

In the conflict societies, the alienation acquires an aggravated form. Need was felt to make community policing integral to the existing policing model; to take into consideration not only the changes at the global level, but also to contextualise them into the local conditions; present community-policing model is an institutionalised initiative to promote communities’ access to peace, justice and security. The guide has outlined broad parameters for the practitioners of community policing. The aim of formulating these is to institutionalise the processes and the activities, but at the same time allow sufficient space for initiating activities to meet the local and specific needs.

Mainstreaming the gender issues within the police system throws up a number of challenges; traditional enforcement perspective operates to safeguard the law by punishing the criminals; women remain invisible within the police system unless they are the culprits; women-related crimes are viewed outside the role of the police. Police in Punjab is also faced with peculiar gender concerns; guide provides an action plan for checking violence against the women; making concerted efforts to reduce incidents of violence against women and increasing reporting of crime and responsibilities towards the women victims.

Understand the functional requirements of Community Policing Centres (CPCs), and details the procedure to set up these centres as a workable institution. The CPCs will work under the Community Affairs Division (CAD) at Police Headquarters level, followed by Community Policing Monitoring and Evaluation Unit at the Zonal Level Police Office; Community Policing Monitoring Unit at Range Level Police Office; Community Police Resource Centre (CPRC) at District Police Headquarters; Community Police Suvidha Centre (CPSC) at Sub Division Police Office, and lastly, the Police Stations Outreach Centre. It registers the role, functions and duties to be performed by these centres besides mapping the funding and resource mobilisation, infrastructure and design, professional capacities, communication and service delivery, networking and coordination with the agencies, and the specified duties of the police personnel.

Effort to develop and modify the knowledge, skills and character traits of the police personnel and the support staff from the community; an effort to simplify the concept of community policing to the personnel involved in any form with these centres; explains the development of community policing programme and emergence of SAANJH programme; elaborates the functioning of different units and committees; role of community policing communities; citizen’s police station and legal rights and duties of the staff.

Security and equitable access to justice are the preconditions for a functional democracy, generation of material wealth, reduction of poverty, safeguarding human rights, and checking social exclusion. Decreasing the fear and risk of crime and security of the citizens’ living environments are a measure of accountable and effective policing. It reflects that the officials and the political leadership are delivering on their commitment thereby increasing performance and legitimacy of the State. For women, addressing gender-based violence becomes an additional prerequisite for their empowerment. However, State capacities in themselves do not translate into safety, security and equitable access to justice for women. This project was an attempt to contribute from below a framework for a composite system of justice delivery which is sensitive to the needs of victims. The project was conducted through two processes. One, by evolving an analysis and framework for measuring gender safety, security and justice, and legitimacy of the criminal justice system that had evolved overtime, and then shared with the policymakers. A composite indicator-based performance measurement tool has been constructed with theme-specific baskets of gender violence related indicators. Two, by preparing a gender social audit instrument for the civil society stakeholders to mobilise and sensitise the citizens to effect an accessible and responsive delivery of justice and advance gender safety and violence prevention strategies. As a matter of fact, gender violence remains invisible and non-reported with social acceptability of certain forms, intensity and lack of trust in approaching the criminal justice system, among other factors. Proxy variables are used to capture the extent of GBV. The selection of proxy indicators depends on the perspective and framework applied. Reported crime against women (CAW) is a common proxy variable of the prevalence, intensity and form of gender violence. Confidence in the Police: In this report, an additional proxy variable of the confidence in the police in reporting gender crime has been used. This has been captured as the social acceptability rate. It demarcates CAW on the intensity, clubbing the reported death and grave violence to compute their ratio to reporting non-physical crime. Higher the confidence in the police, higher would be the reporting of the non severe/non-physical violations. It is more important to capture GBV rather than CAW. Reported crimes capture acts that have been legislated as crimes. The differential child sex ratio is captured from the census data as a rate of missing girl child. The social acceptability rate as the minimum levels of unreported CAW is calculated to add to CAW rate and missing girl child rate to provide on empirical figure of the minimum prevalence rate of GBV.

Police Station Visitors Week was organized by Altus Global Alliance together with the police and the civil society around the world for the first time in 2006; unique initiative gives the civilians an opportunity to visit the local police stations and to assess the services provided by the police. Objective: to bring the police stations in the public domain through the active involvement of community and ensuring transparency in the justice delivery system; Findings: many stations across the globe were found to implement innovative and good practices that bridged communication gap between the police and the citizen; stations which participated in PSVW had made substantial efforts to bridge communication gaps with the citizens and had increased their efficiency in the redressal of the grievances and delivery of justice.

Identify issues for the Election of Punjab Legislative Assembly 2017; conduct social audit of the performance of the incumbent government. Findings: identified the positive initiatives undertaken by the Incumbent Government  and  their shortcomings; points out  the positive steps are : good governance in terms of better administration, digitization, setting up of  Fard Kendras and SAANJH Kendras; welfare schemes like Atta Dal Scheme, Bhagat Puran Scheme, Cycle to Girls  have done well in the state; government worked towards improving Infrastructure in the state;  shortcomings of the incumbent government had been popularization of drugs, rise in crime i.e., law and order problem, agrarian crisis along with rise in general prices; major issues emerge are corruption, menace of drugs/ alcohol, unemployment among youth and agrarian crisis.

SVEEP-III (Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation) is undertaken with objectives; to increase voter turnout in the identified low turnout polling stations; to increase the share of female electors in E-Roll; to increase the enrolment of youth; to increase the postal ballot voting by educating service voters & employees; to promote ethical voting by the electors, and to increase the participation of Persons with Disability (PWDs). Findings: To increase voter turnout, a model code of conduct for booth violations of political parties near polling stations should be enforced; separate queues for senior citizens, push messages giving information about enrolled individuals, live update of the turnout and people currently in queue at a particular polling station location could be sent. Preferred time slots on a first come first serve basis which can be booked online, SMS or phone call, should be provided to the voters. Certain facilities should be made available to people with disability, like providing wheelchairs. Certain steps can also be taken post elections, like felicitation ceremonies for top polling stations based on feedback from citizens. To increase voter’s enrolment, hoarding put up by political parties must have a statutory message to encourage enrolment and turn out; assessment and training of BLOS and felicitation ceremonies post elections and finally, to facilitate increased enrolment, registration centers could be opened at bus stops /railway stations/ Saanjh Kendra. To increase participation of the youth, college/university should get information regarding voter’s registration at the time of admission of the student, it should ensure 100% registration of the students; high turnout, mock elections should be conducted by universities on important bills /issues of the state. IDC also suggested: to make provision of cancellation of voter ID card if a registered elector consistently does not vote for two or three elections; to encourage turnout voting via Biometric Recognition System should be provided for outstation elector; a review report of Polling stations before elections arrangements of toilets, drinking water facility, parking, first aid and number of wheelchairs should be made available.  Enforcement of the model code of conduct for booth violations of political parties near polling stations and wider coverage of schools in urban areas for Sankalp Patras were suggested to overcome low turnout rates in urban areas. To encourage women participation some of the suggestions were targeted radio promotions for women’s importance of choice in elections, NukadNaatak for awareness, and selecting a separate woman state icon.  A specific step that could increase turnout of Scheduled Castes is to identify their localities (i.e., of daily wage earners, construction sites) and enforce a holiday on voting day; for transgender participation, mapping of their colonies and setting up specialized camps with sensitized staff for their enrollment could be an effective step; to encourage NRIs participation, promotions on Canadian and British NRI radio channels should be undertaken to promote postal voting. Biometric system of online voting should be instituted, and voting facilities should be provided at the Indian embassies for NRIs.

Aimed at validating the list of NGOs as available with the Government of Punjab, and on the National Portal of the NGOs, to identify other NGOs whose information was not available with these two sources; to categorize them based on their registration status, type of registration, work orientation, and institutional capacities; to find out as to how many NGOs are working while how many were defunct or dormant; prepare an authenticated directory of such organizations. Findings: Directory of 461 NGOs prepared. Of these 457 NGOs are registered and 4 are unregistered. 406 NGOs were registered as a Society, 44 as Trusts, 6 as Clubs and 1 is registered as a company. 267 NGOs are working at the District Level, 123 at the State Level, and 71 at the Pan-India Level.   305 (66 per cent) NGOs out of 461 have PAN card, while 156 (34 per cent) did not have any PAN Card; 49 (13 per cent) NGOs have got TAN; only 34 (7 per cent) informed that they had the FCRA number; 141 (31 per cent) NGOs were found to have Income Tax Exemption Certificates; 190 (41 per cent) are running some educational, vocational or rehabilitations centers. Majority of these organizations depend upon donations (367), only 20 organizations receive foreign funds; (117) of the organizations did not disclose their source of income; 200 (43 per cent) NGOs file income tax return; 261 (57 per cent) are not complying with the mandate; designated office space either at the residence or commercial property is maintained by 289 (63 per cent);  172 (37 per cent) are not structured professionally and have ad hoc arrangements for the office space; 65 NGOs owned commercial land; 28 NGOs declared that they had agriculture land in the name of the organization. NGOs have different core areas of working, such as, education, health, environment, women and children issues etc; most of these organizations are working in more than one core area.

Aimed at validating the list of NGOs as available with the Government of Punjab, and on the National Portal of the NGOs, to identify other NGOs whose information was not available with these two sources; to categorize them based on their registration status, type of registration, work orientation, and institutional capacities; to find out as to how many NGOs are working while how many were defunct or dormant; prepare an authenticated directory of such organizations. Findings: Directory of 461 NGOs prepared. Of these 457 NGOs are registered and 4 are unregistered. 406 NGOs were registered as a Society, 44 as Trusts, 6 as Clubs and 1 is registered as a company. 267 NGOs are working at the District Level, 123 at the State Level, and 71 at the Pan-India Level.   305 (66 per cent) NGOs out of 461 have PAN card, while 156 (34 per cent) did not have any PAN Card; 49 (13 per cent) NGOs have got TAN; only 34 (7 per cent) informed that they had the FCRA number; 141 (31 per cent) NGOs were found to have Income Tax Exemption Certificates; 190 (41 per cent) are running some educational, vocational or rehabilitations centers. Majority of these organizations depend upon donations (367), only 20 organizations receive foreign funds; (117) of the organizations did not disclose their source of income; 200 (43 per cent) NGOs file income tax return; 261 (57 per cent) are not complying with the mandate; designated office space either at the residence or commercial property is maintained by 289 (63 per cent);  172 (37 per cent) are not structured professionally and have ad hoc arrangements for the office space; 65 NGOs owned commercial land; 28 NGOs declared that they had agriculture land in the name of the organization. NGOs have different core areas of working, such as, education, health, environment, women and children issues etc; most of these organizations are working in more than one core area.

Objectives to:  assess the operation of RTS Act; identify the problems in its implementation and make suggestions to fix them; evaluate the existing institutional mechanism; analyses the efficiency of grievance redressal mechanism i.e. Right to Service Commission, Appellate Authorities and Grievance Redressal outreach in various delivery centers; document back-end architecture of the selected five high volume services for efficient delivery; evaluate preforms for hassle-free and easy access to services, and measure citizens’ satisfaction level and suggest measures for improving the delivery mechanism for citizen-centric governance. Findings: presented from the perspective of service seekers and officials about the awareness about the Act; from the perspective of service seekers. Out of the total 2020 service seekers only 10 reported knowing that the service they applied for came under the RTS Act. Vast majority of the staff members (62.7%) among the officials, were not aware of the various provisions of the RTS Act.; Proformas need standardization; recommends transparency and effective accountability of Grievance Redressal Mechanism, the Appellate Authorities should not be from the same department.; online method of submission of application for the selected services should be promoted through CSCs; and institutionalize complaint registration process. First appellate authority should be trained to redress the complaints within the stipulated time.

Objectives: aimed at validating the list of NGOs as available with the Government of Punjab, and on the National Portal of the NGOs; to identify other NGOs whose information was not available with these two sources; aimed to categorize NGOs based on their registration status, type of registration, work orientation, and institutional capacities; to find out as to how many NGOs are working while how many were defunct and prepare an authenticated directory of such organizations. Findings: Directory consisting of 1541 NGOs has been prepared; of these 1533 NGOs are registered and 8 are unregistered. 1330 NGOs were registered as a Society, 146 as Trusts, 56 as Clubs and 1 is registered as a company; 1334 NGOs are working at the District Level, 125 at the State Level, and 73 at the Pan-India Level; 318 NGOs out of 1541 provided their PAN Card number, while 1223 did not share the detail; 61 NGOs shared TAN; 38 of them had the FCRA number; 146 NGOs were found to have Income Tax Exemption Certificates. 214 NGOs file income tax return regularly, while 200 of them do not file it; the status of 1127 NGOs remained unknown; designated office space either at the residence or commercial property is maintained by 294 NGOs, though 233 are not structured professionally and have ad hoc arrangements for the office space; 65 NGOs owned commercial land; 80 NGOs declared that they had agriculture land in the name of the organization; NGOs have different core areas of working, such as, education, health, environment, women and children issues, youth affairs, agriculture, rural development;  most of these organizations are working in more than one core area.

Objectives: Intended to prepare a comprehensive kit on its prestigious community policing programme SAANJH; documenting the history of Saanjh, its evolution, functions, activities, administrative structure, and financial management. Kit is a compilation of various documents, research publications, office orders, to produce a robust tool for facilitation of implementation of community policing (SAANJH) project; useful for the Punjab police to train their officers in community policing; valuable resource material for researchers and institutions working on police administration as a case study of a successful, institutionalized, and self-sustained community policing programme. Kit gives a detailed account of the evolution of community policing in Punjab in chronological order; acquaints with the contemporary condition which germinated the idea of an institutionalized community policing program; focuses on the creation and management of various units at the SaanjhKendras

Awareness drives, information education and communication (IEC) activities and purposive/target capacity building programmes were planned focusing on taking the positive and negative consequences to reach road users, enforcement functionaries, population living in the vicinity of national highways and other stakeholders with an objective to provide user friendly travel on roads, reduce road accidents and improve life conditions. Road users in majority are less aware about the road safety parameters; the stakeholders, especially the enforcement agencies, must also be trained on the technical and the social parameters; generating public awareness and sensitizing them about the national highways’ benefits leads to a functional national highway project which may help to create an environment of safety, trust and invite less resistance post-completion. Objectives: to ascertain the level of knowledge and awareness of the road users; to sensitize the road users, affected and the local people about the road safety; and to organize capacity building programmes for the officials of the enforcement agencies, institutions and line departments

Programme provides a comprehensive review of road safety scenario on National Highways in the State; divided into three different parts/projects: Road Safety Assessment of National Highways focus on each aspect related to National Highways Toll Roads in Punjab that includes social, planning, engineering, and management techniques; reports were helpful for NHAI itself and various policy makers from different sectors and road safety practitioners. Socio-Economic Impact Assessment of National Highways for Ease ofLiving. Aimed to capture the socio-economic and environmental impact of national Highways on the lives of road users, affected people and the people living in the vicinity (5 Kms) of the National Highway NH-44. In order to capture the impact and changes due to NH-44, a basket of indicators have been evolved. In order to assess the ease of living, three broad indicators were constructed that cover economic, social and sustainability aspects Awareness and Capacity Building of Road Users and Stakeholders of National Highways. The data pertaining to the road accidents shows how disciplined we are on roads, especially on the national highways; to ascertain the level of knowledge and awareness of the road users; sensitization of the road users, affected and the local people about road safety; and, organizing capacity building programmes for the officials of the enforcement agencies, institutions, line departments, civil society and the NGOs; programmes regarding awareness and capacity building of the road users and stakeholders were conducted throughout the State, including for the enforcement agencies.

Government of Punjab has also been continuously supporting its sportspersons through different initiatives and schemes to help them prepare and excel in sports, especially at international events; has also created the Punjab State Sports Council (PSSC) and Punjab State Institute of Sports (PIS) for the promotion of sports in the State; study was to evaluate the status of existing sports infrastructure, training facilities and faculty and recommend strategies for promoting and developing sports in Punjab.

Punjab Vision Document 2047 presents a roadmap that envisages a developed Punjab by 2047; aims at converging efforts of different administrative departments and agencies to meet challenges and achieve identified sectoral goals;  highlights the gray areas on which the government has to put serious and rigorous efforts to rejuvenate its economy, finances, employment, industry, agriculture and rural development, infrastructure development, Sustainable cities and communities, ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education, health infrastructure and provisioning, achieving gender equality, natural resources, affordable and clean energy, climate action and natural resource conservation, technological advancements, governance, safety and security, and, intelligent traffic management systems. Highlight the current status, sector-wise challenges, short-term (2030) and long-term (2047) targets, and strategies to achieve the identified targets.

Punjab Vision Document 2047 presents a roadmap that envisages a developed Punjab by 2047; aims at converging efforts of different administrative departments and agencies to meet challenges and achieve identified sectoral goals;  highlights the gray areas on which the government has to put serious and rigorous efforts to rejuvenate its economy, finances, employment, industry, agriculture and rural development, infrastructure development, Sustainable cities and communities, ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education, health infrastructure and provisioning, achieving gender equality, natural resources, affordable and clean energy, climate action and natural resource conservation, technological advancements, governance, safety and security, and, intelligent traffic management systems. Highlight the current status, sector-wise challenges, short-term (2030) and long-term (2047) targets, and strategies to achieve the identified targets.

The Punjab-Punjab games were a brain child of the two Chief Ministers of Punjab and became one of the biggest confidence building measures undertaken by the two countries in the past year. The CPRCs, as a showcase of partnership between the security agencies and community representatives with efficiency in service delivery as a core element, promotes the importance of people-to-people contact in the conduct of government business

Criminal justice system index is being developed and is being implemented in three layers, i.e., identification of the relevant indicators, methodology, and development of the index.

Countries of South Asia are throwing up new conflicts and challenges as posed by the developments in politics, culture, region and socio-economic formations; conflicts have their basis in the quest for identity, re-allocation of scarce resources, and competition for acquiring power; acquired alarming proportions and virtually engulfed every dimension of the human existence; acquisition of nuclear weapons by some countries further adds to the culture of violence in the region, which has acquired greater legitimacy with the people. Consequently, many conflict situations are taking a violent form and have resulted in the violation of the rights of the citizens; needs to identify research issues for peace building in the region.

Objectives are to assess the overall quality of urban governance in selected local bodies; to assess through intensive and in-depth analysis, performance with reference to the areas of property tax, regulation of new construction and water supply; to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the delivery systems of the selected services and to recommend improvements required in the institutions, rules, procedures and processes to optimize the performance of the local bodies.

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