Research and Advocacy

Samarthan carried out, first under IBP and then under Ford Interventions, a study to understand the discrepancies identified in MIS records and the actual field realities under NREGA. This study was done in 13 blocks of the 10 districts of Madhya Pradesh (Panna, Satna, Rewa, Badwani, Jhabua, Dhar, Sehore, Jabalpur, Seoni and Damoh). It is pertinent to understand whether the availability of minimum wages in MGNREGS for any rural family for 100 days has influenced the wage rate in the labour market in the rural areas in agriculture sector or in the neighbouring towns in the informal manufacturing or service sector. In this study, we made an effort to document the evidences relating to:

• Work is not as per the demand raised by labourers?
• Wage payments are not being met timely?
• Actual wages paid are less than fixed?
• Work is not initiated, even when there is increased demand?
• Why ideal wage: material ratio (60:40) not being followed?
• Work on individuals’ farms is incomplete?

With the help of the report generated, advocacy was done first at block and district level, and then at state level

(i) Through a workshop that was organised with several stakeholders from these 10 district; and (ii) the outcomes of the Workshop were further shared with Director NREGA.

The complete report can be found here 

Madhya Pradesh is one of the front runners on effective performance of MNREGS. In the fiscal year 2009-10, the state generated 2624 lakh person days of employment and 46.17 lakh assets were created under the MNREGS in M.P. In this context, the Poverty Monitoring and Policy Support Unit (PMPSU) within the State Planning Commission assigned a study to Samarthan in June, 2010 with the objective of assessing the performance of MNREGS and impact that the programme could generate to address the issues of poverty and rural livelihood. The study covered a large sample of households about 12000 across 16 districts using a rigorous random sampling design. The complete report can be found here

Government of India took note of the relationship of the tribal and the forest resources and enacted the Scheduled Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Forest Rights Act) 2006. The Act makes a provision of user rights for the traditional community resources or lands which the tribes or other traditional forest dwellers had been using since generations. Samarthan conducted a study to ascertain whether the implementation of the Act has been done according to its spirit in case of Forest Community Rights.

The study was carried out with an aim to understand the state of Public Health Institutions across the state, with reference to the (a) coverage and accessibility of the institutions (b) availability of human resource, (c) availability and quality of infrastructure facilities, (c) availability and quality of assured services including laboratory test facilities, (d) availability of medicines and (e) availability of transparency and accountability mechanisms. A random sample of SHCs, PHCs and CHCs were studied across the 13 selected districts across the states for getting data on the state of these institutions.

The study was undertaken to identify the barriers the urban poor living in slums face in accessing statutory rights/entitlements/benefits as citizens of Madhya Pradesh Falling within the purview of the Madhya Pradesh Urban Services for the Poor (MPUSP) programme, a partnership between the Government of Madhya Pradesh and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The study was commissioned by the Bhopal Municipal Corporation under MPUSP. The rights/ benefits/ entitlements focused were birth/death registration, social security pension, vendor license, voter ID cards/ ration cards.

To deepen the engagement with the citizens as well as the municipality, citizen report card were prepared in the three of the intervened towns. The questionnaire has been designed and the data collection has been initiated. A sample of about 900 citizens living in different wards/ locality representing varying income categories has been collected. The report will be taken up with the municipal bodies and the residents to take up joint corrective actions to improve the situation.

Status of Municipal Finance was examined using the data from five municipalities namely- Sidhi, Sehore, Ajaygarh, Mandsaur and Icchawar. Three of the towns are Nagar Palika while Ajaygarh and Icchawar are Nagar Panchayat. Financial heads were analyzed on the basis of the data procured for the past 5 years. Main trends that were visible were excessive dependence on the grants, poor tax collection especially the property tax (nearly 5 to 7 percent of the total tax revenue), very high (48% to 55%) establishment cost and a very high revenue expenditure on supply of water.

Covering 45 villages of Datia, Panna and Sheore districts, Samarthan conducted a Report Card Study on Primary Education in January 2011. Information was collected from 5 villages each of 3 selected blocks in a district relating to School infrastructure, Parent Teacher Association, and perceptions of Parents and Community about schools. A School profile, prepared on availability and access of schools, is based on information collected from 47 Government and 16 Private schools. Structured interviews with 249 PTA members and 868 parents on working of PTA and issues relating to school performance was main data for the analysis. Focus Group Discussions to validate community perceptions were also conducted. The key finding of the study can be found here

In urban social security programmes, the pension schemes have wider coverage of vulnerable. But, there are issues related to social security benefits in slums and it is found that eligible vulnerable are still out of the reach of social security programmes. Therefore, a study was conducted to identify the issues and encourage governance mechanism to improve the benefits realization in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The study covered all the social security schemes sponsored by the state and the central government in the urban areas. The complete report can be found here.

On request from the Principal Secretary, Panchayat and Rural Development (GoMP) Samarthan was invited to conduct a study to assess a viable size of Panchayat from the point of view of devolutions of Funds Functions and Functionaries. The purpose of the study was to identify the functions that may devolve to Panchayats from the point of view of community expectation. The study analysed the perception on expectation from Panchayat and competency of Panchayat, recorded from different category of stakeholders ranging from community members, elected head of Panchayats, other Panchayat members, village level functionaries and block & district officials from Sehore and Betul Districts.

The study was conducted to assess the status of sanitation and water supply in smaller towns of Madhya Pradesh from citizen’s’ perspective. It was undertaken in five Nagarpalika/Nagar panchayat towns of the state: Sehore, Seoni, Tikamgarh, Sidhi and Ajaygarh. The topics covered under sanitation included environmental issues like garbage collection, drainage etc and household issues like coverage of household toilets. Water supply covered issues like constraints in access to safe drinking water and status of water availability.

73rd constitutional amendment reinforced the importance of local institutions in development of the rural community. The National Rural Health Mission further strengthened the position of the Panchayati Raj Institution in management of Health and health services. Indian Council of Medical Research, Delhi conducted a multi task centre study to assess the performance of Panchayats particularly in the area of health, its potential and limiting factors. The multi task centre study was conducted in Haryana, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Kerala. Samarthan collected the data and compiled the report for the state of Madhya Pradesh.