INDIA Working Papers

Private Sector Engagement for Tuberculosis Elimination: India’s

Journey from Pilots to National Scale-Up (2012–2021)

This working paper examines and documents early experiences and lessons from India’s TB Public Sector Engagement journey. While it is still too early to evaluate the impact of the transition, the story of how India transitioned from pilots to national scale-up holds lessons for other health programs and countries with similar TB burdens.

Synthesis of the Impacts of Covid-19 on India's Labor Market: Looking at People, Places and Policies

This paper examines the impact of Covid-19 on a host of labor market outcomes in India, using a continuous household survey. Cross-sectional trends of headline indicators like unemployment and labor force participation indicate a quick recovery after the unprecedented shock of the pandemic.

An Assessment of Community-Led Lift Irrigation Systems in Jharkhand, India

The Jharkhand State Livelihoods Promotion Society is rolling-out solar powered community lift irrigation systems to provide access to irrigation to 23,580 farming families in 13 districts of the state. This paper assesses these irrigation systems using data collected from 297 farmers in the command area of 50 randomly selected irrigation systems.

From Good to Great in Indian Tertiary Education: Realizing the Promise of the National Education Policy

India has one of the largest and fastest-growing tertiary education systems in the world. Despite its size and growth rate, and the emphasis placed on tertiary education by Indian policymakers in recent times, the system has faced continuous challenges of equitable access, quality, governance, and financing, with the quality of inputs and outputs not keeping pace with the expansion of the sector. The report provides a summary of the outcomes of analytical work on the Indian tertiary education in the context of the proposed NEP reforms and international trends.

How Do Borrowers Respond to a Debt Moratorium?: Experimental Evidence from Consumer Loans in India

Debt moratoria that allow borrowers to postpone loan payments are a frequently used tool intended to soften the impact of economic crises. This paper reports results from a nationwide experiment with a large consumer lender in India, designed to study how debt forbearance offers affect loan repayment and banking

Does Market Integration Increase Rural Land Inequality?: Evidence from India

Using high- quality household survey data (the India Human Development Survey) on land ownership in rural districts of India, this paper provides the first evidence on the effects of market integration on land ownership inequality.

Man or Machine?: Environmental Consequences of Wage Driven Mechanization in Indian Agriculture

This paper uses an exogenous shock to wages from the world’s largest anti-poverty program to show that higher wages can lead to increased air pollution, likely by inducing farmers to shift into a labor-saving and mechanized production process. Using a difference-indifferences approach on the staggered roll-out of India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), combined with data on nearly 1 million fires, the paper shows that the frequency of agricultural fires increases by 21 percent after the shock.

Identifying and Monitoring Priority Areas for Methane Emissions Reduction

This paper identifies high-priority areas for methane emissions reduction and estimates recent emissions changes in those areas using atmospheric concentration data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite platform. The modeling approach is illustrated with three case studies: landfills in Spain (Madrid), irrigated rice production in India (Karnal district, Haryana state), and oil production in Iraq (Al Amarah district, Maysan governorate).

Gender-Based Discounts on Taxes Related to Property: Role in Encouraging Female Ownership — A Case Study of Indian States and Cities

In India, state and city governments are making a simultaneous push to increase revenues through property-related taxes and to offer tax incentives to female property owners. This dual policy approach creates an opportunity to study the impact of genderbased tax incentives on property ownership patterns and tax compliance. This paper investigates linkages between gender-based discounts on taxes related to property (stamp duties and property taxes), female property ownership, and revenues from taxes related to property.