Poverty Alleviation and Rural Development

Provides active research inputs on the access of poor to the minimum basic services and basic civic amenities, to assist various poverty alleviation and rural development programs like Integrated Rural Development Programme, Minimum Needs Programme, etc. of the Central and State Governments.

Extends its research into the aspects of food security, formal and informal education, nutrition and mortality rates, with special emphasis on children and women in order to facilitate policy and institutional development and system performance of health care through improvements in quality, effectiveness and coverage of health services. - Studies the working and empowerment of Self Help Groups and common interest groups. We develop, test and disseminate innovative, gender-equitable and community-managed approaches in support of rural and urban livelihoods and rural infrastructure development.

Conducts monitoring and evaluation studies on rural employment programmes such as Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM), Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) schemes and probes the aspects of productive employment to the poor on labour intensive social and community works like watershed development, minor irrigation works, water & soil conservation and houses and roads in rural areas in order to develop a multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary approach.

Assists the rural women oriented programs like DWCRA program in the empowerment of women, training them in group dynamics, entrepreneurship development, so that they undertake income-generating group activities and enable them to access and control productive resources and effectively use the assets, knowledge and skills they already possess.

Conducts area skills survey, poverty measurement, action research and evaluation studies and special and innovative projects to prevent migration of labor and drought proofing. We offer research services for the assessment of the opportunities and challenges provided by liberalization on poverty and the safety nets necessary..

Presents studies on understanding the energy consumption patterns, supply of energy, developing a least cost energy mix and developing community-managed, sustainable and viable renewable energy systems.

Extend research inputs to mobilizing, organizing, and strengthening the capacities of rural population and disseminate new technologies in support of the sector to facilitate Integrated Social Development Through People's Empowerment.

Provides assistance in compilation and demystification of laws that concern the poor, such as land records and land laws, minimum wages, laws governing contract labour, migrant labour, untouchability, moneylending, laws concerning gender justice, etc.

Provides technical support for synergistic capacity building among the agencies, resources and the various anti-poverty and rural development programmes, based on the factor endowments of the area, the needs of the people and the resources available in order to improve micro-planning, financial management and sensitization to the needs of the poor. We also conduct studies on the role of community participation, public-private partnerships, media etc in awareness building, education and training of the potential beneficiaries and developing research and development centers and deepen their understanding of poverty issues.

Studies the application of Information and Communication Technology in co-ordinating the rural, local, national and regional development programmes, capacity building and training progrmas, networking primary health centres and promoting Community Informatics (CI).

To avail any of these services, please contact for more information or to schedule a consultation.