Resource Type: Briefing Notes

The briefing note is based on a study with the Department of Basic Education in Uttar Pradesh, India. It examines the transition to direct benefit transfer (DBT) mode in the distribution of school supplies to primary and upper primary school students statewide. It highlights how the DBT mode relieves teachers of cumbersome non-teaching tasks involved in distribution, allowing them to focus more on their core academic duties.

In recent years, India has moved to a leading position in digital payments and developed an ecosystem that enables the uptake and usage of digital payments. Many countries now seek to replicate India’s payments systems, particularly the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). This blog highlights the evolution of India’s payments landscape and looks into issues and ideas that contributed to this evolution. It briefly discusses the controversial waiver of the merchant discount rate (MDR) to increase the number of use cases in the person-to-merchant (P2M) category.

This blog is the second in a three-part blog series. The blog highlights use cases where digitizing even a conservative 10% of the current cash-based transactions presents service providers with a supplemental opportunity worth more than INR 45 billion (~USD 608 million).

This briefing note shares our insights and recommendations from our pilot to strengthen eSanjeevaniOPD—the Government of India’s teleconsultation platform and similar private platforms.

This note focuses on the situation of COVID-19 in India and the government’s communication efforts during the pandemic. Based on MSC’s research with low- and middle-income households, it highlights how these efforts can be strengthened through the adoption of a Social Behavioral Change Communication (SBCC) campaign.

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, agricultural activities in India were exempt from restrictions. However, the lockdowns led to various disruptions in the supply chain. This blog summarizes the impact of COVID-19 on different sub-sectors and highlights the measures the government took to address the problems of farmers.