Indicative Planning Research Articles

Economic returns of family planning and fertility decline in India, 1991–2061

AbstractInvestment in family planning (FP) provides returns through a lifetime. Global evidence shows that FP is the second-best buy in terms of return on investment after liberalizing trade. In this study, we estimate the cumulative benefits of FP investments for India from 1991 to 2016 and project them up to 2061 with four scenarios of fertility levels. The findings suggest that India will have greater elasticity of FP investments to lifetime economic returns compared to the world average (cost–revenue ratio of 1:120). We have taken four scenarios for the goalpost, viz., 2.1, 1.8, 1.6, and 1.4. Although different scenarios of total fertility rate (TFR) levels at the goalpost (i.e., the year 2061) offer varied lifetime returns from FP, scenario TFR < 1.8 will be counterproductive and will reduce the potential benefits. With a comprehensive approach, if the country focuses more on improving the quality of FP services and on reducing the unmet need for FP to enhance reproductive health care and expand maximum opportunities for education and employment for both women and men, it can improve its potential to reap more benefits.

India’s Commitments to Increase Tree and Forest Cover: Consequences for Water Supply and Agriculture Production within the Central Indian Highlands

As part of its nationally determined contributions as well as national forest policy goals, India plans to boost tree cover to 33% of its land area. Land currently under other uses will require tree-plantations or reforestation to achieve this goal. This paper examines the effects of converting cropland to tree or forest cover in the Central India Highlands (CIH). The paper examines the impact of increased forest cover on groundwater infiltration and recharge, which are essential for sustainable Rabi (winter, non-monsoon) season irrigation and agricultural production. Field measurements of saturated hydraulic conductivity (Kfs) linked to hydrological modeling estimate increased forest cover impact on the CIH hydrology. Kfs tests in 118 sites demonstrate a significant land cover effect, with forest cover having a higher Kfs of 20.2 mm h−1 than croplands (6.7 mm h−1). The spatial processes in hydrology (SPHY) model simulated forest cover from 2% to 75% and showed that each basin reacts differently, depending on the amount of agriculture under paddy. Paddy agriculture can compensate for low infiltration through increased depression storage, allowing for continuous infiltration and groundwater recharge. Expanding forest cover to 33% in the CIH would reduce groundwater recharge by 7.94 mm (−1%) when converting the average cropland and increase it by 15.38 mm (3%) if reforestation is conducted on non-paddy agriculture. Intermediate forest cover shows however shows potential for increase in net benefits.

‘Between the devil and the Bay of Bengal’: the Ford Foundation and the politics of planning in post-Independence Calcutta

ABSTRACT From 1960–1973, the Ford Foundation and the Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Organization (CMPO) engaged in a unique partnership that produced the Basic Development Plan, a bold strategy for the development of the world’s ‘most troubled city.’ The Ford-CMPO partnership brought together leading planning experts from the United States and India and resulted in innovative and abortive development plans and programmes, and was beset by the economic and political crises that came to define post-Independence Calcutta. This paper provides a detailed history of the Ford-CMPO partnership and highlights the myriad of political dilemmas that challenged the project and that provide a window in the politics of planning and urban development in post-Independence India.

Managing power system flexibility in India via coal plants

The Government of India plans to install 175 GW of renewable energy projects by 2022, and 275 GW by 2027. In meeting these goals, the Indian power sector faces twin challenges: first, managing renewable energy will require increased flexibility in the system; second, there will be under-utilization of existing coal-based plants, which would stress the economics of not only individual plants but also the overall power sector. This creates a need to explore the conversion of existing baseload coal plants as flexible resources. Our analysis shows the following: first, the incremental costs for converting baseload coal plants to flexible ones would be only 5%–10% of the total costs of baseload plants in net present value terms or 8%–22% in levelized terms; second, flexible coal may be the most cost-effective flexible solution in the near-term, by a factor of approximately 4–22, when compared to lithium ion batteries or pumped hydro. Finally, while we have provided an indicative analysis of additional costs of converting baseload coal plants into flexible ones, we recommend that flexible coal be procured cost-effectively using appropriate market mechanisms, such as capacity auctions.

Understanding drivers of family planning in rural northern India: An integrated mixed-methods approach.

Family planning is a key means to achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals. Around the world, governments and partners have prioritized investments to increase access to and uptake of family planning methods. In Uttar Pradesh, India, the government and its partners have made significant efforts to increase awareness, supply, and access to modern contraceptives. Despite progress, uptake remains stubbornly low. This calls for systematic research into understanding the 'why'-why people are or aren't using modern methods, what drives their decisions, and who influences them. We use a mixed-methods approach, analyzing three existing quantitative data sets to identify trends and geographic variation, gaps and contextual factors associated with family planning uptake and collecting new qualitative data through in-depth immersion interviews, journey mapping, and decision games to understand systemic and individual-level barriers to family planning use, household decision making patterns and community level barriers. We find that reasons for adoption of family planning are complex-while access and awareness are critical, they are not sufficient for increasing uptake of modern methods. Although awareness is necessary for uptake, we found a steep drop-off (59%) between high awareness of modern contraceptive methods and its intention to use, and an additional but smaller drop-off from intention to actual use (9%). While perceived access, age, education and other demographic variables partially predict modern contraceptive intention to use, the qualitative data shows that other behavioral drivers including household decision making dynamics, shame to obtain modern contraceptives, and high-risk perception around side-effects also contribute to low intention to use modern contraceptives. The data also reveals that strong norms and financial considerations by couples are the driving force behind the decision to use and when to use family planning methods. The finding stresses the need to shift focus towards building intention, in addition to ensuring access of trained staff, and commodities drugs and equipment, and building capacities of health care providers.

Water safety planning in India: Assessment of water quality in urban Vadodora

Water safety planning in India: Assessment of water quality in urban Vadodora

Looking Beyond the Mask: Evolution of Well-being Plans in Corporate India During the Pandemic of 2020

The coronavirus has altered the well-being efforts in corporate India irrevocably. By altering the working construct from office to home to (possibly) a hybrid, the pandemic has changed the base assumptions of what initiatives are needed by employees, how and where they consume it and how important it has become to the organisations. Like most swords, this has more than one edge. In this article, we attempt to find out, by asking people in industry, what the next year is likely to bring by way of changes in the focus, roll out, funding and measurement of well-being plans in corporate India. The survey indicates a sea change is afoot in how important these programs are, who is responsible for them and what they cover.

Reproductive Health Crisis During Waves One and Two of the COVID-19 Pandemic in India: Incidence and Deaths From Severe Maternal Complications in More than 202000 Hospital Births

Background: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in India has adversely affected many aspects of population health. We need detailed evidence of the impact on reproductive health in India so that lessons can be learnt. Methods: Hospital-based repeated monthly survey of nine severe maternal complications and death in 15 hospitals across five states in India covering a total of 202,986 hospital births, December-2018 through to May-2021. We calculated incidence rates (with 95% Confidence Intervals (CIs)) per 1000 hospital births, case-fatality and rate ratios (RR) with 95% CIs. Linear regression was used to examine the association between the Government Response Stringency Index (GRSI) for India and changes in hospital births, incidence and case-fatality. Results: There was a significant decrease in hospital births per month during the pandemic period with a 4.8% decrease per 10% increase in the GRSI scores (p<0.001). The overall incidence of severe complications in the pandemic period was not significantly different from the pre-pandemic period, but hospital admissions from septic abortion was 56% higher (RR=1.56; 95% CI=1.22–1.99; p<0.001). The overall case-fatality of complications increased by 23% (RR=1.23; 95% CI=1.03–1.46; p=0.022) and remained high across the different phases of the pandemic with a notable significant increase in deaths from heart failure in pregnancy. Conclusion: Our study supports the legitimacy of the calls made to maintain sexual and reproductive health services as essential services during the pandemic. Lessons learnt should be used to avert the ongoing reproductive health crisis while India plans to manage a third wave of the pandemic. Funding Information: The MaatHRI platform and this study was funded by a Medical Research Council Career Development Award to MN (Ref:MR/P022030/1). Declaration of Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Ethics Approval Statement: The MaatHRI platform and the repeated monthly survey have been approved by the institutional review boards (IRB) of each coordinating Indian institution, namely: Srimanta Sankaradeva University of Health Sciences, Guwahati, Assam (No.MC/190/2007/Pt-1/126); Nazareth hospital, Shillong, Meghalaya (Ref No. NH/CMO/IEC/COMMUNICATIONS/18-01); Emmanuel Hospital Association, New Delhi (Ref. Protocol No.167); Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Sevagram, Maharashtra (Ref No. MGIMS/IEC/OBGY/118/2017); and the Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh (No.Dean/2018/EC/290). The project has also been approved by the Government of India’s Health Ministry’s Screening Committee, the Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi (ID number 2018-0152) and by the Oxford Tropical Research Ethics Committee (OxTREC), University of Oxford, UK (OxTREC Ref: 7-18).

Prevention and control of cardiovascular diseases in India needs a strengthened and well-functioning primary health care system: A narrative review

This article reviews the ongoing initiatives to prevent and control cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in India and analyses the role of primary health care (PHC) system. The authors note that in last 2 decades, there has been increasing policy recognition of the challenges posed by CVDs and NCDs in India. The review of ongoing government health program in India indicate that while the interventions to tackle CVDs and NCD have also been launched and scaled up, a majority of these initiatives continue to be delivered through district or sub-district levels. Though, there has been plans, the scale up through PHC system is at early stage only. There is sufficient scientific evidence that the effective prevention and control of CVDs need accessible health services and a series of public health interventions through strengthened PHC system. There are learnings from COVID-19 pandemic response in India (in areas such as private sector engagement, effective enforcement of health regulation, community engagement and the use of tele-consultations), which can be useful. The authors conclude that a strengthened and well-functioning PHC system can ensure increased access to CVD and NCD services. As India plans to scale up ongoing health programs and launch a few new initiatives, the learnings from the past, documented in this paper, could be useful. These steps would help India to accelerate progress towards universal health coverage.

Clinical Legal Education: A Virtual Mode of Access to Justice

Legal education, all over the world uses a mix of practical and theoretical means to train students. For purposes of practical training, specialized legal clinics are established by legal education institutions to train the students to apply the classroom learnt law in live cases. These legal clinics serve dual purposes, first, of training students in the practical aspects of the law and second, providing access to justice to people in areas where it is difficult to get legal help and where reaching institutions of justice delivery is difficult. The pandemic situation prevailing world over now has had deep impacts in imparting legal education. The physical classrooms have turned into virtual classrooms, delivering only theoretical education and leaving doubts in the mind of students due to lack of practical training resulting from non-functioning of legal aid clinics in this situation. In order to ensure access to justice in India during the time of pandemic, the judiciary has taken recourse of virtual courts, whereby the listing and hearing of cases which require urgent hearing are done online. The same methodology has also been adopted by the National Legal Aid Service Authority by conducting virtual Lok Adalats where cases are entrusted to them . By studying the same mode of virtual courts and virtual Lok Adalats, the present paper aims to devise a working model to ensure that clinical legal education is continued in India during these times of pandemic, and that legal aid clinics work efficiently to ensure that people are not deprived of their right to legal assistance. The working model proposes a collaboration between the legal aid clinics of the universities and colleges and the justice delivery institutions to ensure dual purpose of legal aid clinics is met. The model will also be tested in the institution, and a pan India plan of action for implementing this model would be devised.

Clinical Legal Education: A Virtual Mode of Access to Justice

Legal education, all over the world uses a mix of practical and theoretical means to train students. For purposes of practical training, specialized legal clinics are established by legal education institutions to train the students to apply the classroom learnt law in live cases. These legal clinics serve dual purposes, first, of training students in the practical aspects of the law and second, providing access to justice to people in areas where it is difficult to get legal help and where reaching institutions of justice delivery is difficult. The pandemic situation prevailing world over now has had deep impacts in imparting legal education. The physical classrooms have turned into virtual classrooms, delivering only theoretical education and leaving doubts in the mind of students due to lack of practical training resulting from non-functioning of legal aid clinics in this situation. In order to ensure access to justice in India during the time of pandemic, the judiciary has taken recourse of virtual courts, whereby the listing and hearing of cases which require urgent hearing are done online. The same methodology has also been adopted by the National Legal Aid Service Authority by conducting virtual Lok Adalats where cases are entrusted to them . By studying the same mode of virtual courts and virtual Lok Adalats, the present paper aims to devise a working model to ensure that clinical legal education is continued in India during these times of pandemic, and that legal aid clinics work efficiently to ensure that people are not deprived of their right to legal assistance. The working model proposes a collaboration between the legal aid clinics of the universities and colleges and the justice delivery institutions to ensure dual purpose of legal aid clinics is met. The model will also be tested in the institution, and a pan India plan of action for implementing this model would be devised.

India’s National Security Coordination and Policymaking

The National Security Council (NSC) has become the most important institution on national security coordination, planning and policymaking in India, particularly since 2014. However, the government has been criticised for not institutionalising its national security architecture as many changes in the NSC system are seen as personality centric. Vinay Kaura assesses the key characteristics and functioning of the evolving NSC coupled with the role and influence of individuals and institutions. He contends that a decline in prime ministerial trust or interest, which seems unlikely until 2024, could moderate the NSC’s role in policymaking on national security. ◼

Pathway Towards Building a Self-Reliant Economy with Special Focus on MSME Sector

Covid-19 has plunged the building blocks of Indian economy. None of the nations were prepared for this sort of a fatal contagion and economic downturn rolled into one. Besides, fighting with covid-19, India plans to transform the plight into opportunity by becoming self-reliant to reinforce Indian economy to emerge strongly in the post-covid-19 world. Therefore, the paper highlights the pathway towards building a self-reliant economy with special focus on the MSME sector in India.

Status and challenges for tuberculosis control in India – Stakeholders' perspective

BackgroundTuberculosis is one of the ten major causes of mortality worldwide. The trend of increasing TB cases and drug resistance in India is very disturbing. The objectives of the study were to study the perspectives and opinions of different stakeholders on the status, challenges and the ways to tackle the issues of TB in India. MethodsThe online survey was done for the data collection from national and international experts. The data collection took place during October 2017. We received 46 responses. ResultsThe experts had varied answers as to the menace of TB in India, effect of TB on individuals, family and society, failure of government plans in India, TB awareness campaign and ways to create awareness. Everyone believed that urgent action needs to be taken against the disease like improving the healthcare infrastructure of the country (improving the quality and quantity of medical facilities and doctors) and creating awareness about the TB. ConclusionGovernment of India is making lot of efforts to bring down the problems associated with TB through. In spite of this, there is a long way to go to achieve significant reduction in high incidence and prevalence of TB in India. Factors like lack of awareness and resources, poor infrastructure, increasing drug resistant cases, poor notification and overall negligence are the major challenges. If we eradicate poverty and undernourishment, educate the masses and eliminate the stigma attached with TB, we can hope for a disease free future.

Land use planning, dispossession and contestation in Goa, India

ABSTRACT This article seeks to understand the role of land use planning in India's neoliberal regime of dispossession. Analyzing the relationship between planning and land dispossession in the state of Goa, we view planning processes and documents as constitutive parts of state-specific regimes of dispossession. We argue that planning in Goa emerges as a terrain of struggle between a state-capital nexus seeking to dispossess and convert land, and an organized citizenry seeking to use planning for alternative purposes. We show how the long-term trend in regional planning is one in which planning documents function predominantly to assemble land for private investments.

Urban cycle models revisited: Insights for regional planning in India

This paper revisits the potential of urban cycle models to investigate the current challenges of urbanisation in India. It contributes not only by empirically examining the past, current and future trend of urban development, but also by predicting the demand for social infrastructure for sustainably accommodating the predicted growth. Using a non-spatial model, rapid growth is predicted in small cities in developed regions and in intermediate cities in developing regions. The adopted spatial model suggests a decline of megacity cores, but the growth of million-plus city cores and respective peripheries should be anticipated. Socio-economic factors are helpful for understanding the growth of million-plus city cores and megacity suburbs. In those cities predicted to grow, the provision of health and education infrastructure will be below the government norms. Given the data constraints, rapid growth and institutional constraints, this research develops and implements an analytical approach, thereby enhancing understanding of spatial development and elucidating the policy reforms needed to reduce the spatial disparities in India. This approach is transferable to the regions of the Global South facing similar constraints.

Neighbourhood Supports for Active Ageing in Urban India

Developing urban environments that promote healthy, active living for older adults is at the forefront of global planning policy debates, resulting in concepts and design guidelines to support population ageing. However, current urban planning in India is overlooking the design of age-friendly cities. The share of older adults in India is estimated to increase from 8 per cent in 2015 to 20 per cent in 2050. This demographic shift towards a higher proportion of older adults and the associated health and social care expenditures make healthy ageing a public health priority. Existing studies in gerontology have focused on improving housing environments, but we are now understanding the significance of neighbourhood environments for active ageing. This study contributes to the knowledge on factors shaping active ageing in urban India. We present findings from 55 semi-structured interviews conducted with older adults (age &gt; 60 years) in the metropolitan cities of New Delhi and Chennai in India. The findings explore three themes that emerged from this research: (a) neighbourhood design for active ageing, (b) social participation in community spaces and (c) navigating urban transport and mobility. Across these themes, this study highlights that access to neighbourhood amenities such as transportation, parks and green spaces, and opportunities for leisure and social interaction play a key role in determining older adults’ health and quality of life. In drawing on older adults’ lived experiences in their communities, this study informs policy efforts to improve neighbourhood supports for active ageing in urban India.

Prediction of COVID-19 Outbreaks Using Google Trends in India: A Retrospective Analysis.

ObjectivesConsidering the rising menace of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), it is essential to explore the methods and resources that might predict the case numbers expected and identify the locations of outbreaks. Hence, we have done the following study to explore the potential use of Google Trends (GT) in predicting the COVID-19 outbreak in India.MethodsThe Google search terms used for the analysis were “coronavirus”, “COVID”, “COVID 19”, “corona”, and “virus”. GTs for these terms in Google Web, News, and YouTube, and the data on COVID-19 case numbers were obtained. Spearman correlation and lag correlation were used to determine the correlation between COVID-19 cases and the Google search terms.Results“Coronavirus” and “corona” were the terms most commonly used by Internet surfers in India. Correlation for the GTs of the search terms “coronavirus” and “corona” was high (r > 0.7) with the daily cumulative and new COVID-19 cases for a lag period ranging from 9 to 21 days. The maximum lag period for predicting COVID-19 cases was found to be with the News search for the term “coronavirus”, with 21 days, i.e., the search volume for “coronavirus” peaked 21 days before the peak number of cases reported by the disease surveillance system.ConclusionsOur study revealed that GTs may predict outbreaks of COVID-19, 2 to 3 weeks earlier than the routine disease surveillance, in India. Google search data may be considered as a supplementary tool in COVID-19 monitoring and planning in India.

Systematic review of barriers to, and facilitators of, the provision of high-quality midwifery services in India.

The Indian government has committed to implementing high-quality midwifery care to achieve universal health coverage and reduce the burden of maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. There are multiple challenges, including introducing a new cadre of midwives educated to international standards and integrating midwifery into the health system with a defined scope of practice. The objective of this review was to examine the facilitators and barriers to providing high-quality midwifery care in India. We searched 15 databases for studies relevant to the provision of midwifery care in India. The findings were mapped to two global quality frameworks to identify barriers and facilitators to providing high-quality midwifery care in India. Thirty-two studies were included. Key barriers were lack of competence of maternity care providers, lack of legislation recognizing midwives as autonomous professionals and limited scope of practice, social and economic barriers to women accessing services, and lack of basic health system infrastructure. Facilitators included providing more hands-on experience during training, monitoring and supervision of staff, utilizing midwives to their full scope of practice with good referral systems, improving women's experiences of maternity care, and improving health system infrastructure. The findings can be used to inform policy and practice. Overcoming the identified barriers will be critical to achieving the Government of India's plans to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality through the introduction of a new cadre of midwives. This is unlikely to be effective until the facilitators described are in place.

Understanding the barriers to the diffusion of rooftop solar: A case study of Delhi (India)

The threat of climate change has necessitated that nations make a switch to greener and more environmentally sustainable fuels. India's plans to promote electricity generation from solar energy is a positive step in this direction. Several states have come up with their own renewable energy plans to support this transition. Delhi's solar policy (2016) intends to contribute to this national plan. It was widely believed that Delhi's favourable geographical conditions for solar, relatively high literacy rate and good public awareness would aid good market penetration of rooftop solar (RTS). However, the expectations of the policy makers have been belied by a meagre adoption rate as RTS has met with a very lukewarm response from the residents of Delhi. The current study holistically explores the obstacles hindering the growth of Delhi's RTS market by integrating perspectives from solar vendors, implementing agencies' officials and users/potential users and suggests some policy measures to address the issues.