Azim Premji University, in collaboration with 9 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), conducted a survey of 3,000 households in 92 low-income settlements across 39 wards of Bengaluru. The survey was done to estimate the continuing impact of COVID-19 induced lockdowns and economic disruptions on employment and livelihoods. The survey also captured information on access to government support as well as coping mechanisms to deal with such a crisis. Workers in a wide range of occupations such as drivers (cab, auto, and others), daily wage workers (construction and others), domestic workers, and factory workers (garment and others) were surveyed. The survey was conducted in the month of November 2021 with the help of Action Aid, Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA), The Center for Advocacy and Research (CFAR), Hasiru Dala, Gubbachi, Reaching Hand, Sangama, Swabhimaan Trust, and Thamate.

• Download the full report here
• Press release: English | Kannada
• Key Findings: Short | Detailed
• YouTube video of the virtual event held on 4 April, 2022.
• Recording of the in-person event held on 29 March, 2022 in Bengaluru is available here.

Media coverage

– Print

• Bangalore Mirror: Inheritance of Covid losses (30 Mar 22 | Page 1, 8)
• Rajasthan Patrika: तीन फीसदी परिवारों को ही मिला नकद हस्तांतरण योजनाओं का कुछ लाभ : अध्ययन (30 Mar 22 | Page 1)
• The Hindu: Survey finds that Covid-19 impact on livelihoods continues (30 Mar 22 | Page 4)
• The New Indian Express: Urban poor still coping with job, income loss- Report (30 Mar 22 | Page 2)
• Udayavani: Kannada (30 Mar 22 | Page 8)

– Online

• ETV Bharat: ರಾಜಧಾನಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕೋವಿಡ್ನಿಂದಾದ ದುಷ್ಪರಿಣಾಮ : ಸಮೀಕ್ಷೆಯ ವರದಿ ಬಿಚ್ಚಿಟ್ಟ ಅಜೀಂ ಪ್ರೇಮ್ಜಿ ವಿವಿ
• Hindustan Times: 3% benefitted from Karnataka govt’s cash scheme
• News9: Bengaluru COVID impact survey- Job, income losses hamper ability of households to recover
• Rajasthan Patrika: कोरोना महामारी : 40 फीसदी ने कम भोजन से किया गुजारा
• The Indian Express: Job and income losses persisted among low-income settlements well past 2020 lockdown- Study
• The News Minute: Job, income losses due to lockdowns continue to impact Bengaluru urban poor

In India, as in many countries around the world, most government jobs are allocated through a system of merit-based exams. Over the past few decades, these exams have become incredibly competitive, at times receiving over 1,000 applications for each vacancy.

Against a backdrop of rising educational attainment, high aspirations, disappointment with private sector opportunities, and a deep unmet need for income security, it is understandable why the demand for public sector employment opportunities is so high.

Yet despite the large footprint that public sector recruitments have in our social, economic and political life, many basic questions about them remain shrouded in mystery. Who applies? Why do they apply? Are these intense levels of competition socially productive, or do they make people worse off? Why are people willing to invest so much in exam preparation? Why are people willing to gamble on such low odds of getting selected?

Our lack of understanding limits our ability to formulate sound labour market policy. As we will see, a large share of college graduates participate in public sector recruitment exams, and candidates for these exams make up a disproportionate share of the overall unemployed population. How can we improve employment outcomes if we do not understand who the unemployed are and how they invest their time?

The main reason for the holes in our understanding is a lack of data. To date, neither private nor public household surveys include questions on whether individuals are preparing for competitive exams; and recruitment agencies have historically been cloistered institutions, understandably concerned about protecting the integrity of the recruitment process. As a result, the crores of candidates preparing for competitive exams around the country remain largely invisible in data, and by extension in policy.

This report attempts to shine a light on this dark corner of the labour market. To do so, the researcher uses several new sources of data. First, he draws on administrative data from a recruitment agency. This data allows us to observe the whole recruitment process for the entire universe of applicants — the first time such data has been made available in the Indian context. 

Second, the researcher uses data from a large-scale survey of over 3,000 candidates, which provides information about their investments in exam preparation, their access to resources, their constraints, and their beliefs. 

Third, the research collaborators and the researcher conducted interviews and focus groups with candidates to better understand them in their own words. These rich data sources provide new insights into the economic and social life of candidates preparing for competitive exams.

The goal of this report is to demonstrate how both labour market and recruitment policy can be informed by a better understanding of candidate application behaviour. This understanding can, in turn, help us tackle some of the key challenges in the modern Indian labour market — high levels of educated unemployment, a lack of skill development, low levels of female labour force participation, and more.

Download the report here

Summary Articles:

VoxDev: The costs of extreme competition for government jobs: Evidence from India

Ideas for India: The costs of extreme competition for government jobs

Further Reading:

Mangal, Kunal (2022a), ​“How much are government jobs in developing countries worth?.” Download here.
Mangal, Kunal (2022b), ​“The long-run costs of highly competitive exams for government jobs.” Download here.

FAQs:

Are the statistics in the report official?

Although the report uses official data, the statistics in the report were not computed by TNPSC. Therefore, none of these statistics are official, and any errors in processing the data are entirely my own.

Is the report written in affiliation with any coaching center?

No. We are academic researchers. No one who was involved in either collecting and analyzing the data had any affiliation with a coaching center.

Will the report be available in Tamil?

We hope to be able to provide a Tamil summary of the report in the near future.

This report presents findings of a rapid environmental impact assessment conducted to determine the number of trees that will be cut or impacted, and other ecosystems affected, as a result of the Proposed Flyover on Sankey Road.

This study examines the performance of MGNREGA during the Covid-19 pandemic in eight blocks across four states of India, viz. Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. MGNREGA functioning is analysed along the following dimensions: overall impressions of the programme among job card holding households, extent of unmet demand, wage payments, changes in programme functioning during the pandemic, and effectiveness of MGNREGA as a safety net. The blocks were chosen from a list of blocks in which Civil Society Organisations part of the NREGA Consortium are working. All blocks on this list were ranked based on their performance in MGNREGA as reflected in the Management Information System (MIS). Highest and lowest ranked blocks were chosen in each state and are referred to as high performing and low performing blocks in the study The blocks chosen were — Phulparas (Madhubani) and Chhatapur (Supaul) in Bihar, Bidar (Bidar) and Devadurga (Raichur) in Karnataka, Khalwa (Khandwa) and Ghatigaon (Gwalior) in Madhya Pradesh, and Wardha (Wardha) and Surgana (Nashik) in Maharashtra. A two stage random sampling was followed in the chosen blocks. In the first stage, five Gram Panchayats (GP) were randomly chosen in each block based on the Census 2011 list. In the second stage, 50 households were randomly selected in each GP from the MGNREGA MIS list of job card holders. The sampling method ensures representativeness of the results at the block level for all job card holding households. The survey was conducted in November-December 2021. Two reference periods were employed. The first covered the pre-Covid financial year (April 2019 to March 2020) and the second covered the Covid financial year (April 2020 to March 2021). This also includes executive summary of the report.

Download full report here

Download Executive Summary here (English, Kannada, Hindi).

Download Press Release here (English, Kannada, Hindi).

Download slides of key results

Press coverage of report findings

This report examines the changes in the producer company landscape in the last two years by analysing data on producer companies registered in the country from April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2021. The report examines changes in geographical spread and capitalization of producer companies in the last two years, in order to determine the extent to which the gaps in the previous promotion efforts have been addressed. It also analyses recent policies to understand their impact on the producer company ecosystem. The report identifies five focus areas to enable the sector to reach its full potential in enhancing the incomes and reducing the vulnerabilities of small producers.

Eight essays in this compendium, written by experts with long years of experience in administration and academic research take a critical view of governance responses during the three waves of Covid-19 pandemic in India and recommend measures to address governance challenges that India is likely to face after the pandemic. The essays survey the institutional, procedural, legal, and socio-political implications of the Union and the State Governments’ responses to the pandemic-induced crisis in a range of areas such as public health, education, environmental regulation, urban planning, management of vital statistics and reliance on technology-based solutions. A series of policy recommendations have been made in each of these domains to address the problems that the pandemic has left behind, and to make the governance system and processes better equipped for any such future catastrophe.

The compendium has been brought out jointly by the School of Policy and Governance (SPG) at Azim Premji University, and the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), which is a is a group of retired officers of the All-India Services and Central Services.

We cannot achieve the demographic dividend unless we create jobs for millions of youth. There are multiple forces – thirteen of them identified in this report — working against employment growth in India from both supply side and the demand side. It is proven that large enterprises create very few jobs. Even these few jobs are created for educated youth. Only Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) can create large number of jobs across India for workers with wide range of skills and education. Out of a total of just over 63 million enterprises in the MSME sector, 62 million are informal micro and very small enterprises (MSEs). Of these, single worker firms (own-account) are 40 million, firms with 2 to 5 workers are 22 million and firms with more than 5 but less than 10 are estimated at 1 million. 107.6 million workers (97% of all employment in the MSME sector) are in this MSE segment. These MSEs, surprisingly, are more rural than urban — 51% are in rural India. Women-owned firms accounted for 20 % of all enterprises, 16 % of all workers and 9 % of aggregate value-added. There is a huge potential to grow these women owned enterprises. MSEs are the most important segment of the Indian Economy if we want to achieve GDP and Employment growth. Moreover, many of these enterprises are closely aligned with households, particularly in location and ownership. These enterprises play a pivotal role in linking the formal and the informal sector through value chains. We don’t need more micro-enterprises or more single-person firms. Instead, we need to scale-up these existing MSEs. How can we do this? By creating a support system which will make these MSEs go digital, grow in scale and increase their productivity. This will automatically create jobs The Udyog Sahayak Enterprise Network (USENET) proposed in this report is that support system. Why a support system? Because it is not possible to educate millions of the MSE entrepreneurs to become digital experts. Why now? Because India and the world are going digital. In the digital marketplace small can compete better and grow.

Download Policy Proposal Here.

Read media coverage here.

Realising India’s demographic dividend requires a focused policy approach for employment generation. Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) can create millions of jobs, across India, for workers with wide range of skills and education. Out of a total of just over 63 million enterprises in the MSME sector, 62 million are informal micro and very small enterprises (MSEs). We do not need more micro-enterprises. Instead we need to help existing MSEs to grow in size. We can do this by creating a support system which enables them to go digital, avail of government schemes, adopt new technologies, and increase productivity. This will create millions of new jobs.

This report is a first of its kind collaboration between Azim Premji University, FICCI, and TISS-Mumbai. It proposes the creation of an Udyog Sahayak Enterprise Network (USENET) at the national level. USENET is a support system for MSEs that will improve Ease of Doing Business for micro and small entrepreneurs. Udyog Sahayak Enterprises will take servcies such as digitisation and formalisation, availing of government loans, subsidies or other benefits, ensuring compliance with local, regional, and national regulation, aiding partnership with digital marketing platforms and digital payment platforms, to the MSEs at their doorstep.

Media Coverage

Press Coverage USENET Report Release
The Times of India: Support system to up ease of doing business
The Economic Times: Azim Premji University, FICCI, TISS, roll out plan for employmenet generation in MSME sector
ETAuto: Policy proposal for employment generation, scale-up in MSME sector
Business Today: FICCI, Azim Premji University recommend 18 lakh Udyog Sahayak Enterprises network to assist MSEs

The Hindu: Draft policy to help grow nano, micro enterprises
The Hindu Businessline: ​‘Set up USENET centres micro, small enterprises’ 

The New Indian Express: Micro firms can create 10.3 million jobs: Report
The Statesman: Azim Premji University, FICCI and TISS form policy proposal for employment generation for MSMEs
Telangana Today: USENET could help MSMEs scale up
The New Indian Express – Edex Live: This network for MSEscan help create 56 million new jobs in 10 years. Here’s how
UNI: Azim Premji University, FICCI, TISS come out with new USENET policy for creating one crore job
The Hans India: Azim Premji varsity, FICCI, TISS roll out plan to generate jobs in MSME sector
SME Times: Report proposes ease of doing biz for MSEs
Nagaland Post: Policy proposal to scale up MSME sector

A field study was conducted in August, 2021, with 363 primary school teachers across 18 districts to capture teachers’ voices on what has happened during school closure since the pandemic began and what needs to be done once schools reopen.

When the pandemic hit, the Indian economy was already in the most prolonged slowdown in recent decades. On top of this, there were legacy problems such as a slow rate of job creation and lack of political commitment to improving working conditions which trapped a large section of the workforce without access to any employment security or social protection.

The pandemic has further increased informality and led to a severe decline in earnings for the majority of workers resulting in a sudden increase in poverty. Women and younger workers have been disproportionately affected. Government relief has helped avoid the most severe forms of distress, but the reach of support measures is incomplete, leaving out some of the most vulnerable workers and households. 

The report was released on 5 May 2021- you can watch the recording of the online event here.

This report essentially takes stock of the employment conditions prevailing in the Indian economy prior to the pandemic and then goes on to delineate the impact of COVID-19 on lives and livelihoods. It also charts a possible policy path forward to address both short-term and long-term challenges of livelihood and employment. The focus is primarily on the non-farm economy while analysis and policy recommendations are at the national level.

School closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to complete disconnect from education for the vast majority of children or inadequate alternatives like community based classes or poor alternatives in the form of online education, including mobile phone-based learning.

Modern India has a history of a vibrant and active social sector. Many local development organisations, community organisations, social movements and non-governmental organisations populate the space of social action. Such organisations imagine a different future and plan and implement social interventions at different scales, many of which have lasting impact on the lives of people and society. However, their efforts and, more importantly, the learning from these initiatives remains largely unknown not only in the public sphere but also in the worlds of ​‘development practice’ and ​‘development education’. This shortfall impedes the process of learning and growth across interventions, organisations and time.

On the 25^th of March 2020, the Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, announced a nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of the novel Coronavirus, COVID-19. The decision, while imminent, was unplanned and unilaterally made without any consultation with the state governments. This has consequently caught millions of migrant workers and the bureaucracy off-guard, leaving them no time to plan for such an emergency. While millions of migrants successfully reached their home states, only to be quarantined in camps, many remain stranded far from home, with no money or food. We are therefore confronting a lethal combination of crises: health, hunger, sanitation, and trauma, both physical and psychological.

Eighty-seven percent of agricultural households in India are small and marginal producers, cultivating small plots which generate low returns. Their average monthly income is Rs 6426, making farming on small plots economically unviable (NSSO 2014). Therefore, policy makers and practitioners are turning to producer collectives as a means for improving the economic situation of small producers.

To contribute to the critical matter of India creating just and sustainable employment, the University has set up the Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE), which conducts and supports research in areas of work, labour, and employment. The University is attempting to provide empirically grounded, analytical reflections on the state of work and workers in India, as well as to evaluate and propose policies that aim to create sustainable jobs. To this end the University also gives grants to create new knowledge in the above areas. It also hosts a working paper series to which contributions are invited from researchers, policy-makers, civil society actors, and journalists. The University’s CSE website is an important part of this agenda. In addition to research papers and policy briefs, it hosts government reports, as well as data and statistics on the Indian labour market. This also includes executive summary of the report.

State of Working India 2019 consists of labour market trends between 2016 and 2018, and four policy papers around the theme of employment generation.

Download Full Report

Executive Summary

Media Coverage and Press Release

Download Chapters

• What do Household Surveys Reveal about Employment in India since 2016?
• Strengthening Towns through Sustainable Employment: A Job Guarantee Programme for Urban India
• Using Fiscal Policy to Alleviate the Job Crisis
• Creating Good Jobs Through A Universal Basic Services Programme
• How to Revive Indian Manufacturing? On the Need for Industrial Policy

Release event: Presentation and panel discussion

State of Working India 2019 Release Event Part One — YouTube

State of Working India 2019 Release Event Part Two — YouTube

Microenterprises have been the engines of job growth in the majority of dynamic economies. India is home to thousands of microenterprise clusters as well as millions of distributed entrepreneurs who can become job creators. Fostering of such mass-entrepreneurship is key to addressing India’s employment challenge. Case studies of clusters in general, and of women entrepreneurs in particular, show that if key factors such as collective action, infrastructure, credit, and market linkages are in place, returns to entrepreneurship are vastly improved. Inspirational stories are also emerging in the use of fourth industrial revolution technologies to improve access to markets and enter global value chains in a way that awards greater agency to women entrepreneurs.

The Karnataka Crime Victimisation Survey report is based on the findings of a crime victimisation survey undertaken by Azim Premji University with the assistance of independent field investigators in 2017. The main objective of the survey was to understand the scope and nature of crime in the state and to analyse the extent to which the National Crime Records Bureau records capture the rate of crime in Karnataka. 

The problems of India’s development and governance are routinely linked to the logic of India’s electoral democracy. As a result, a great deal is known about elections, but paradoxically our knowledge of politics and society between elections is relatively underdeveloped. As much as anything else, development and governance outcomes are shaped by how the government functions between elections; including how it relates to citizens on a regular basis, how it provides routine public services to them, and how public order is maintained. Further, governance processes are nested in the social and political relationships between citizens and government functionaries.

India is one of the world’s fastest growing economies. To be a stable and prosperous democracy, this growth must be accompanied by the creation of meaningful, secure and remunerative employment. Realising this goal requires a grounded and comprehensive overview of the state of labour markets, employment generation, demographic challenges and the nature of growth.

The State of Working India (SWI) is envisioned as a regular publication that delivers well-researched, analytically useful information on India’s labour market, by bringing together researchers, journalists, civil society activists, and policymakers interested in labour and employment issues.

The report is based on the research of CSE staff, as well as on background papers which are available online. SWI conceives of India’s ongoing structural transformation as composed of two processes — movement of workers from agriculture to non-farm occupations (the Kuznets process) and from informal activities to formal ones (the Lewis process). But it adds crucial considerations of social equity and ecological sustainability to this standard framework. In the 21^st century, Lewis and Kuznets have to meet Ambedkar and Gandhi.

Report Documents

• Complete Report (PDF) Corrigendum
• All Figures (PDF)
• Figure Data (XLS)
• Appendix Tables (XLS)
• Media Coverage
• Background Papers
• Individual Chapters:
  • Cover And TOC
  • Executive Summary (Hindi version)
  • Chapter One : Introduction
  • Chapter Two : Who Is Looking For Work?
  • Chapter Three : Where Is the Work?
  • Chapter Four: How Good Is The Work
  • Chapter Five: Who Does The Work
  • Chapter Six : Conclusion
  • Methods
  • Bibliography

The report is based on the data drawn from detailed interactions with civil society organisations working on urban health in different cities and town across geographies including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Surat, Lucknow, Guwahati, Ranchi, Delhi etc., inputs from health officials in select cities, analysis of select data bases including NFHS, Census of India, government websites and secondary literature on urban health. 

The report focuses on:

a) Understanding the health vulnerabilities of the urban poor 

b) Availability, accessibility, cost and quality of health care facilities and challenges therein 

c) Propose possible pathways towards fixing the gaps in urban health care governance and provisioning. It also outlines the detailed provision and governance of health care in four different cities and towns including Bengaluru (Tier I), Thiruvananthapuram (Tier II), Raipur (Tier III) and Davanagere (Tier III).

The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented situation, which resulted in prolonged school closure in India and across the world. Schools were fully or partially closed in India for over two years, among the longest periods in any country. Governments responded as best as they could, primarily through enabling education using technology. However, given the nature of digital divide in the country and the lack of readiness of teachers, these efforts were suboptimal at best. Further, while face to face learning was not possible, some efforts at teacher-driven community-based learning were made. However well-meaning, these efforts could not prevent the loss of curricular learning for the period schools were closed as well as loss of learning or forgetting what had been learnt before schools were closed. At the same time, the efforts of teachers during these difficult times must be noted. Despite these severe unprecedented challenges during the pandemic, it was the concerted effort of engaged and motivated teachers that provided rays of hope. As frontline professionals who are the best positioned to understand, empathise, and devise innovative and consistent approaches to the challenges faced by the children who come to their schools, many teachers across the country showed how the seemingly insurmountable problems of the pandemic could also be addressed. Like other frontline workers across government departments, many engaged teachers across the country ignored the ​‘fear’ of the pandemic and took it as their professional calling to devise ways and means to stay connected with the children from their schools and communities, offering what they only can do to help children stay connected with schools and learning processes even during multiple adversities they were facing. This volume brings together a series of studies done during the pandemic. It is an attempt to document and to highlight the unique challenges of the situation as well as efforts to overcome these challenges.

Education is fundamental to every society in many ways. It is the most organised process for economic, social and cultural development. It is also a systematic effort of a society to progress towards its ideals. In the case of India, to bring to life the vision and values of the Constitution. For a democratic society, a vibrant public education system is foundational.

Our Series on Issues in Education aims to bring into focus educational matters that are important for the improvement of the education system in India. It will attempt to connect to the reality of education on the ground, which is often complex and defies any kind of clear narrative and definitive conclusions.

This series emerges from the deep presence of Azim Premji Foundation in 50 disadvantaged districts in the country and our work with school systems in over 15 States and the Government of India. We bring to bear our 19 years of experience in working directly and continuously with over a million public schools, teachers and education leaders. The first volume in this series is on teachers and teacher education.

In this volume, we look at the functioning of teacher education institutions, examine the kind of support that teachers in the public system receive and understand the conditions within which teachers work.