What is Project Nagrik?
Project Nagrik examines how citizens in India encounter welfare delivery in practice. It focuses on the gap between formal policy design and the lived process through which households seek schemes, documentation, and assistance. Rather than approaching welfare systems only through policy documents or digital platforms, the project centers the everyday pathways people navigate when trying to access benefits.
“You need a contact to get your ration card.”
“I didn’t know my family was eligible.”
“The app doesn’t work without Aadhaar.” — Voices from the field, Project Nagrik surveys & interviews
The project draws on 100+ surveys and 12 ethnographic interviews conducted across rural and urban Maharashtra. Field observations highlighted three recurring patterns:
- Intermediation: Access often moved through local brokers, operators, or informal intermediaries.
- Awareness gaps: Many households appeared unaware of schemes for which they may have been eligible.
- Digital exclusion: Identity- and app-based workflows often introduced barriers rather than removing them.
Why Project Nagrik matters
Documentation gaps
Eligibility rules vary widely, and many citizens remain unsure what paperwork is actually required.
Digital exclusion
App-first systems can disadvantage basic-phone users, shared-device households, and low-literacy applicants.
Informal costs
Unlogged steps can create delays, discretionary friction, and room for informal payments or gatekeeping.
Fragile trust
Many respondents expressed conditional trust in technology, often believing computers may be fairer than humans if decisions are explained clearly.
Insights from Project Nagrik informed the motivation for SARAL — a prototype focused on transparency, accountability, and bias-aware access to welfare.
Field Observations Explorer
Explore selected field observations
ExploratoryEach card below links an observation to survey responses and field notes. These materials are presented descriptively and are intended to document recurring patterns, not to make inferential or causal claims.
New parts are added as fieldwork evolves.
Four-Part Series: Realities of Welfare Access
A structured series from interviews and surveys across Maharashtra. Each part tackles one layer of the problem; access, outcomes, discretion, digital exclusion and how these insights shape a fairer system.
The Invisible Barrier
Paperwork traps, mediation norms, and missing information keep eligible families out. Insights from 100+ surveys and interviews across Maharashtra.
The Fragile Link
A gas connection, a housing grant, a family’s lifeline, why success remains the exception, not the rule.
The Unwritten Rule
Unlogged steps, delays, and informal payments: mapping how discretion shapes outcomes and how to surface it.
The Missing Signal
Why app-first portals lock out basic-phone users and low-literacy households, and what inclusive intake looks like.
From Insight to Action — Meet SARAL
Project Nagrik surfaced patterns in how welfare access unfolds in practice. SARAL builds on those observations as a design prototype — a transparent, rule-based decision-support system intended to make administrative processes more visible and auditable.