The Janaa-Brown Citizenship Index Project

A research partnership between Janaagraha and Brown University, gathering systematic data on the relationship between citizenship and delivery of public services in cities across India.

Depending on the definition of “urban”, India’s population, 32% urban in 2011, could well be over 40% urban in the next 8-10 years, if not higher.

As India continues to urbanise, some critical questions on the landscape emerge:

  • In the rising cities, are citizens able to invoke their rights or do ties between the political elite and citizens remain unwaveringly strong?
  • Can effective citizenship, exercised by citizens through political and civic participation, lead to substantive improvements in people’s lives? Specifically, can it help improve the extent and quality of public service delivery (water, sanitation, electricity, transport)?

The Project

With these questions in mind, Janaagraha and Professors Ashutosh Varshney and Patrick Heller at Brown University, USA, formed a research partnership and developed a project. In addition, Professor Siddharth Swaminathan (Azim Premji University, Bangalore) is our academic collaborator in India.

Entitled the Jana-Brown Citizenship Index (JB-CI) study, we are gathering systematic data on the relationship between citizenship and delivery of public services as well as on how citizens engage the state in cities across India.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are also expanding our research to look at the response and recovery of different communities from COVID-19, with reference to citizenship and basic service delivery.

Cities studying

Cities have been selected from all the geographic zones of the country. The table below summarizes these case selections. Data has already been collected in cities which are highlighted in green while we are currently preparing for fieldwork in the cities highlighted in orange. Following completion of data collection in all the listed cities, a nationwide comparison of urban and rural governance is planned.

Cities part of JB-CI

No. City/(UA) (Target) number
of interviews		 Population
(UA)* in 2011		 State
1 Bangalore 3000 87,49,944 Karnataka
2 Mumbai 3000 1,83,94,912 Maharashtra
3 Chennai 3000 86,53,521 Tamil Nadu
4 Ahmedabad 3000 63,57,693 Gujarat
5 Hyderabad 3000 76,77,018 Telangana/Andhra Pradesh
6 Delhi 3000 1,63,49,831 Delhi
7 Kolkata 3000 1,40,57,991 West Bengal
8 Kochi 2000 21,19,724 Kerala
9 Vadodara 2000 18,22,221 Gujarat
10 Mysore 2000 9,90,900 Karnataka
11 Lucknow 2000 29,02,920 Uttar Pradesh
12 Bhopal 2000 18,86,100 Madhya Pradesh
13 Bhubaneswar 2000 8,50,000 Odisha
14 Bhavnagar 1000 6,05,882 Gujarat
15 Shimoga 1000 3,22,650 Karnataka
16 Ajmer 1000 5,51,101 Rajasthan
17 Jalandhar 1000 8,74,412 Punjab

*Urban Agglomeration (UA) includes population in urban areas surrounding cities (Census 2011, Government of India).

Green – fieldwork complete

Orange – preparations underway for fieldwork

Findings

Our Bangalore findings can be studied here:

Opinion pieces based on the data collected on the seven last phase cities can be accessed here:

COVID 19 vaccination penetration in the urban poor

The objective of this research was to collect quantitative evidence on aspects around vaccine penetration in the urban poor in four cities; Chennai, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Kochi. This includes vaccine awareness, uptake, reasons for non-uptake, location of vaccine source and understanding how vaccines were coordinated. The survey was conducted from May 6 to June 14, 2021. Read our summary report here.

Dataset and Tables

To access the raw data and tables, please click below:

Mumbai
Ahmedabad
Kochi
Chennai

Contact

For more information or to discuss any aspects of the project, please contact: Tarun Arora, Project Manager, Research and Insights at Janaagraha: tarun.arora@janaagraha.org

To know more about our survey findings for specific project cities, click on the city link – Bangalore