About

20 Years of Tending
to India’s Cities

Janaagraha began as a movement to promote participatory democracy at the neighbourhood level. We soon discovered, however, that citizen participation alone was not enough.

Governments must also be equipped to deliver infrastructure and services, build their own capacity through training and technology, fully empower elected leaders, and ensure high standards of accountability and transparency.

We then adopted a two-track approach: resolving issues on services and infrastructure through participation, even as we worked to reform the systems that delivered them.

Our learnings and experiences shaped our thinking and led to the development of the City-Systems framework.

students

Mission

Janaagraha’s mission is to work with citizens and governments to transform the ‘quality of life’ in India’s cities and towns. The term ‘quality of life’ as defined by Janaagraha has two dimensions. The first is the ‘quality of urban infrastructure and services,’ that is, roads, drains, transport, water supply, etc. The second is the ‘quality of citizenship’ – that is, the role that urban citizens can play by participating in civic matters. 

Journey

Janaagraha was founded in December 2001 by Swati and Ramesh Ramanathan. The duo’s contrasting experiences as citizens in Indian and global cities inspired them to pioneer citizen participation and urban governance reforms in India.

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Journey

Janaagraha was founded in December 2001 by Swati and Ramesh Ramanathan. The duo’s contrasting experiences as citizens in Indian and global cities inspired them to pioneer citizen participation and urban governance reforms in India.

couple

Janaagraha Way

Organisational culture is the collection of lived values, expectations, and practices that guide and inform the actions of all team members. Culture is deeply integrated with strategy; it seeds from the organisation’s purpose and its priorities (as defined by the Theory Of Change and strategy) and develops with the practised values of the founders, successive leadership, teams and is influenced heavily by the socio-cultural context and shifting organisational priorities.

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People of Janaagraha

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Janaagraha is committed to fostering, cultivating and preserving a culture of diversity and inclusion. We embrace and encourage our teams’ differences in age, colour, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other characteristics that make each one of them unique.

Recognition

Our work over the years has won us national and international awards and recognition.

Recognition

Our work over the years has won us national and international awards and recognition.

Partners

Partners

Annual Report

Janaagraha is registered under the Indian Trusts Act, 1882. We regularly publish our annual reports, audited financial statements, and summaries of foreign contributions.