SCI-AI Project
Scaling City Institutions for Asia and India’s (SCIAI) objective is to deliver transformative actions and solutions, designed on the basis of independent scientific research. As new innovations and technology change the landscape of possibilities for a just and equitable society, institutions and governance rescaling and reform, drive or inhibit applicability. Based on research and multi-stakeholder consultations SCIAI focuses on contextual governance actions and processes in Asian cities required to harness opportunities and address challenges in a changing world. SCIAI is nested at the Global Water and Sanitation Centre of the Asian Institute of Technology.
SCIAI-Impact: Q1-Q4 FY 23-24
Citywide Inclusive Sanitation
Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) takes a collaborative and holistic approach to urban sanitation with the aim of ensuring equitable access to adequate, safe, and affordable improved sanitation services for all members of the society. CWIS adopts a public service approach to planning and implementing urban sanitation systems and consists of elements of sanitation service that are outside of individuals’ direct private interests and can include safe on-site containment, network connections, transporting waste to safe disposal, and other activities required for long-term protection of water, land and public health along the value chain.(Schrecongost et al., 2020) CWIS lays down a framework of services outcomes focusing on equity, safety, and sustainability of sanitation infrastructure and services and system function that ensure accountability, assign clear responsibility to authority, and effectively manage and plan resources to achieve inclusive sanitation for all.
Citywide Inclusive Sanitation M&E
The principles underpinning CWIS are well-defined, the indicators for reporting and measuring progress for CWIS are still evolving. SCI-AI team has developed a new approach to monitoring and evaluation of progress of CWIS.
The approach draws a list of General Indicators developed synthesised from analysis of different CWIS M&E frameworks. The General Indicators allow contextualisation of Indicators based on policy preference, existing data system, capacity of the local government, and the kind of sanitation mix existing at city level. It also allows incremental approach to measurement that enables progressive implementation of CWIS programs.
Implementing CWIS in Odisha
Based on the General Indicators formulated for the CWIS M&E frameworks, SCI AI has developed specific indicators for Odisha tailored to its context as a pilot. It utilized 52 state-specific indicators and collected over 90 data points to assess progress in CWIS 1. The progress is evaluated against each sub-principle, considering the value of the indicator, data quality, and intensity factor. This approach aims to articulate the current status of Odisha’s advancement in CWIS 1, highlighting both challenges and opportunities for improvement. The evaluation identifies areas that need enhancement and outline a strategic roadmap for the implementation of CWIS 2.
Slums are informal settlements characterized by poorly built, congested tenements in unhygienic environments, typically with inadequate infrastructure and proper sanitary and drinking water facilities. Although, safely managed drinking water and adequate sanitation are basic human rights essential for health and well-being yet slums often lack these services owing to its precarious tenure. Efforts are ongoing globally and in India to integrate slums within the urban fabric by delinking tenure from providing basic water sanitation infrastructure at par with the cities. This case study documents such an intervention by the Government of Odisha, under their flagship scheme JAGA Mission. The slum upgradation and Delisting interventions delinks tenure to enable access to basic services, including in-house water and sanitation, on tenable land. The case study explores the key enablers that facilitate provision of these essential services to slum dwellers at their doorstep with or without formal tenurial rights, offering invaluable insights for the region and the global South.
Case study on CWIS and Slum Upgradation and delisting
“Reference to what the images are describing”
Slums are informal settlements characterized by poorly built, congested tenements in unhygienic environments, typically with inadequate infrastructure and proper sanitary and drinking water facilities. Although, safely managed drinking water and adequate sanitation are basic human rights essential for health and well-being yet slums often lack these services owing to its precarious tenure. Efforts are ongoing globally and in India to integrate slums within the urban fabric by delinking tenure from providing basic water sanitation infrastructure at par with the cities. This case study documents such an intervention by the Government of Odisha, under their flagship scheme JAGA Mission. The slum upgradation and Delisting interventions delinks tenure to enable access to basic services, including in-house water and sanitation, on tenable land. The case study explores the key enablers that facilitate provision of these essential services to slum dwellers at their doorstep with or without formal tenurial rights, offering invaluable insights for the region and the global South.
While insecurity of tenure is a key marker for slums alongside inadequacy of basic sanitation infrastructure, the land ownership of these slums often determine whether it is not under the purview of state and local governments to extend infrastructure or regulalise tenure. Much of the slums are situated on lands owned by private entities or central government agencies e.g. forests, defence etc., making the process of acquiring and providing land titles legally complex and requiring intricate negotiations. This case study focuses on the innovative approach adopted by the Odisha government to address these challenges for their xx% of slums. Specifically, it examines the process of land unlocking, to provide in-house water and sanitation services to slum dwellers living on untenable land. It documents the strategies employed, the obstacles faced, and the lessons learned, offering invaluable insights for the region and the global South.
While insecurity of tenure is a key marker for slums alongside inadequacy of basic sanitation infrastructure, the land ownership of these slums often determine whether it is not under the purview of state and local governments to extend infrastructure or regulalise tenure. Much of the slums are situated on lands owned by private entities or central government agencies e.g. forests, defence etc., making the process of acquiring and providing land titles legally complex and requiring intricate negotiations. This case study focuses on the innovative approach adopted by the Odisha government to address these challenges for their xx% of slums. Specifically, it examines the process of land unlocking, to provide in-house water and sanitation services to slum dwellers living on untenable land. It documents the strategies employed, the obstacles faced, and the lessons learned, offering invaluable insights for the region and the global South.
Mainstreaming CWIS in Disaster Risk Reduction Framework
India’s unplanned urbanization has made urban environments increasingly fragile, exposing residents to increased economic, social, and environmental risks. Urban poor neighbourhoods, marked by poor living standards and inadequate infrastructure, are especially vulnerable to periodic disasters. Access to safe water and sanitation, in the wake of any disasters, becomes harder to access often leading to disease outbreaks like cholera, dengue, and malaria, highlighting the urgent need for better and continued water supply and sanitation service delivery. The recent Covid-19 pandemic, particularly underscored the importance of devicing risk-informed disaster mitigation strategies. Current disaster management plans and implementation frameworks have a strong response-focus, often lacking a thorough vulnerability assessments, preparedness and mitigation strategies, potentially limiting to integrate disaster risk reduction (DRR) across sectors. This study aimed to review the existing DRR framework in the context of CWIS framework and provides insights to integrate CWIS as a mitigation strategy to minimise the disproportionate impact of disasters on the most vulnerable urban populations.
Odisha Inclusive Urban Sanitation Policy
Odisha Inclusive Urban Sanitation Policy (OIUSP) 2024 is first in the country to focus on inclusivity, participation of the most marginalised esp. women and Transgender in achieving and sustaining sanitation outcomes in the State. The policy support was provided by SCI-AI, GWSC in collaboration with Odisha partners of NFSSM Alliance.
Odisha had notified an urban sanitation policy and strategy in 2017 aiming to make cities open-defecation and open-discharge-free. In the first five years, the focus was developing infrastructure, policies, and regulations for adopting FSM in the State.
OIUSP 2024 Policy sets a path for the State to sustain the benefits of sanitation achieved in the last five years through an inclusive approach where citizens remain at the centre of planning, implementing, and monitoring sanitation outcomes and are treated as equal development partners. In addition, it reinforces the State’s commitment to Sustainable Development Goals and other national priorities on sanitation. This Policy elucidates key policy goals, principles, and outcomes with an incisive focus on community s leadership. In addition, it provides an institutional mechanism to achieve the policy outcomes backed with legal, statutory, financial, planning, monitoring and evaluation, capacity building and communication framework re-emphasizing community partnership through Mission Shakti SHG groups and Slum Dwellers Associations (SDAs).
Urban Rural Convergence
“urban-rural convergence” approach aims to leverage the existing FSM treatment infrastructure and desludging services in urban areas to provide FSM service in neighbouring rural areas. It bridges the urban-rural divide of safe sanitation practices, minimising the need for creating additional infrastructure, and provides opportunities for institutional convergence for universalising sanitation outcomes. This approach has consequential positive impact on local environmental, pollution abatement efforts and reduced health risks associated with unsafe management of faecal waste. Dhenkanal was the first city in the country to demonstrate a comprehensive approach by extending existing FSM services from Dhenkanal Municipality to neighbouring Gram Panchayats (GPs). Subsequently, the efforts were scaled up within the Dhenkanal District and the Ganjam District to demonstrate a model for Urban Rural Convergence in Odisha
National Strategy for Urban Rural Convergence in FSM
SBM 2.0 guidelines recognise Urban Rural Convergence as one of the approaches in providing sanitation services to rural areas. Under SCI-AI project a strategy to identify the districts in which FSM and URC can be prioritized based on type of sanitation system and ground water level has been developed. The strategy also includes a review of existing institutional structure with a view to integrate URC strategy within the rural planning framework.
Using SCI-AI CityApp for Urban Rural Convergence
Strategy for urban rural convergence require data from different sources. City App, an in-house web GIS tool developed by SCI-AI brings together data from different sources and apply the URC strategy across 10 states of India and let the users download the list of priority districts for FSM and URC.
Regulation in WASH
It is crucial to establish strong and resilient water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) systems capable of meeting people’s needs. Given the multitude of actors involved in providing WASH services, a clear regulatory framework is essential. This framework should outline the roles and responsibilities of each organization involved in the WASH system, including any potential overlap between them. Additionally, it should address their ability to fulfill these roles and the rules that bind them. An effective balance of power and responsibilities among the service providers, the service authority or regulator, and the service users is necessary for sustained delivery of WASH services.
The regulatory framework for WASH services should, ideally, encompass aspects of asset ownership and management, economic mechanisms for tariff setting and collection, service levels, environmental protection and inclusivity in its design.
Roadmap for Regulatory Reform in delivery of Water and Sanitation Services
The SCI AI initiative@ Global Water And Sanitation Centre at the Asian Institute of Technology is supporting the Government of Odisha to initiate the regulatory reforms to institutionalize an integrated WASH regulator in the State. For this, an analysis was conducted of the roles performed by the different institutions in delivering WASH services in Odisha. Additionally, a study was undertaken to examine the existing regulatory frameworks for delivering WASH services in Nepal, Bangladesh and Karnataka, India, providing valuable insights
Role of National Green Tribunal in River Pollution Abatement
NGT’s role in fostering Institutional Accountability
Despite the involvement of various institutions at both the national and state levels in addressing environmental concerns such as river pollution, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) continues to play a crucial role in river pollution abatement.
Extensive analysis has been conducted on the tribunal’s directives for river pollution abatement, with Odisha as a case study. The actions taken by the Odisha government, especially for environmental protection through practices adopted for waste water management, in response to NGT directives and their resulting impact have been thoroughly explored.
Monitoring Gender in WASH
Gender relations play an important role in how different sexes access and use water and sanitation. Improvement in access to water and sanitation can contribute to gender transformation within household, community, and state.
It is important to understand and measure the effect of improved water and sanitation on gender relations. SCi-AI research on monitoring gender in WASH focuses on improving the relation between social, economic, and political empowerment of women, and transgender and develop monitoring tools for measuring gender transformation potential and intentionality of WASH infrastructure and services.
Pathways for Gender Transformative outcomes in WASH
Gender Transformative outcomes in WASH
There are multiple pathways through which access to water and sanitation can transform gender relations within the household, community, and the government.
SCI-AI research on gender transformative outcomes in wash presents a framework for measuring the effect of improved access of sanitation in Social, economic, and political empowerment of women that can lead to gender transformation.
Gender Intentionality Index
Scaling City Institutions for Asia and India (SCI-AI) at Global Water and Sanitation Centre (GWSC), Asian Institute of Technology has led a collaborative effort towards developing a Gender Intentionality Index for measuring gender intentionality of services and infrastructures provided by ULB.
An M&E framework and data collection tool was developed and piloted in eight cities in three States across India in partnership with NFSSM Alliance. The tool collected data on access and affordability of WASH infrastructure and services, participation of women and transgender population in WASH governance, social security of women sanitation workers, and gender inclusion in budget and planning..
SCI-AI CityApp
The SCI-AI Datahub enables spatial analysis by combining open-source spatial data with other data sources including administrative data from the government and improve data driven decision making.
In the past year, the SCIAI Datahub has successfully integrated data from various sources, including river pollution, urbanization patterns, and land use. This data is highly relevant to FSM and CWIS, and has significantly improved our understanding of how urbanization affects the demand for FSM and other sanitation services.
Visualising Urban Growth
Urban growth in India is driven by rapid growth in small and medium sized cities and in-situ rural to urban transformation. SCI-AI CityApp brings spatial data from different sources to visualize and understand the pattern of urban growth in India. The main objective is to understand how urban growth impacts service delivery in small and medium sized cities.
Webinar on Risk to Resilience: Climate Change and Disaster Adaptation Strategies for WASH
Scaling City Institutions for Asia and India (SCI-AI) at Global Water and Sanitation Centre (GWSC), Asian Institute of Technology hosted a webinar on 1st May 2024 on From Risk to Resilience: Climate Change and Disaster Adaptation Strategies for WASH. The webinar focused on the urgent need for resilient Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) services amid climate change and disasters, emphasizing the importance of safe and inclusive sanitation for health, development, and social equity.
The first session explored climate resilience in the WASH sector. The panel included Shubhagato Dasgupta from SCI-AI who discussed existing climate action frameworks, followed by Thammarat Koottatep from AIT shared insights on sanitation challenges and climate risk mitigation, Madhav Pai from WRI highlighted climate-resilient urban infrastructure, while Rajib Das and Ravie Kiran emphasized the role of communities in creating resilient WASH interventions in slums. The session underscored the critical role of institutions at various levels in fostering resilience.
In the second session, the focus shifted to disaster resilience in WASH management. The SCI-AI team presented on WASH governance during disasters, followed by a panel discussion featuring Shruti Narayan, Dr. Umamaheshwaran Rajasekar, Jagan Shah, and Dr. Victor Shinde. They explored strategies for implementing mitigation and adaptation measures, highlighting the need for robust institutional frameworks, and coordinated efforts to enhance disaster resilience and ensure equitable access to WASH services.
Webinar on Turning the Tide: Role of Statutory Bodies in Abating River Pollution
Learning Lab on Monitoring Gender in WASH: Opportunities and Challenges
On May 2, 2024, a webinar on Role of Statutory Bodies in Abating River Pollution was organized by the Scaling City Institutions for Asia and India (SCI AI) programme at Global Water and Sanitation Centre (GWSC), Asian Institute of Technology, in partnership with the National Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (NFSSM) Alliance and Transboundary Rivers, Ecologies & Development Studies (TREADS), Centre for Policy Research (CPR).
The webinar comprised two sessions. The first session examined the evolving role of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in addressing river pollution, featuring a presentation by Anindita Mukherjee and Isha Khurana from SCI AI, GWSC, AIT. This was followed by a panel discussion featuring D.P. Mathuria from Central Water Commission, Ministry of Jal Shakti; Binaya Kumar Dash from the Government of Odisha; B. Sengupta (Former Member Secretary of CPCB); Mandeep Kalra (practicing lawyer at NGT); and Hrudananda Mohanty from SCI AI, GWSC, AIT.
The second session, moderated by Srinivas Chokkakula, President and Chief Executive Officer, CPR and Ministry of Jal Shakti Research Chair, focused on international experiences to strengthen efforts in mitigating river pollution. Insights from the Rhine Rejuvenation project in Europe, the Selangor experience in Malaysia, and the involvement of local bodies in tackling river pollution were discussed by Debarshee Dasgupta from TREADS @ CPR, Haslina Binti Amer from Selangor Water Management Authority (LUAS); Nitin Bassi from Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW); and Depinder Kapur from Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
The webinar was well-attended from various sectors, including members and students from academic institutions, development partners, practising lawyers, environmental scientists, sector practitioners, and representatives from think tanks.
Learning Lab on Monitoring Gender in WASH: Opportunities and Challenges
Scaling City Institutions for Asia and India (SCI-AI) at Global Water and Sanitation Centre (GWSC), Asian Institute of Technology organised a learning lab on 30th April 2024 on challenges and opportunities in monitoring gender in WASH.
In the first session, Dr. Sheela Sinharoy from Emory University presented on challenges in measuring gender empowerment in WASH at the global level, followed by a presentation by SCI-AI team that outlines the key gaps in data and policy with respect to monitoring gender in WASH in India. The presentation was followed by a panel discussion by as Sujoy Mojumdar from UNICEF India, Dr. Aastha Dang from 3ie, and Isha Basyal from AIT Thailand.
The second session discussed some of the tools to monitor gender intentional and gender transformative outcomes in WASH. The first presentation was based on key learnings from a pilot study done by SCI-AI in collaboration with NFSSM alliance partners on measuring gender intentionality index for ULBs. The second presentation was by Ms. Malini Reddy from Athena Infonomics on tools based on the MUSE framework piloted in South Asia and Sub-Saharan African countries. The presentations were be followed by a discussion on the key lessons from the pilot by Padma Bhate from CREA and Manvita Baradi from UMC.
About SCI-AI
Team Leader – Shubhagato Dasgupta
Shubhagato Dasgupta is the Team Leader of the Scaling City Institutions for India (SCIAI) nested at the Global Water and Sanitation Centre at the Asian Institute, Bangkok and a Senior Fellow at CPR, New Delhi. His current research focuses on drinking water and sanitation in India and the world, with particular reference to flagship government programs and service delivery challenges. Other major areas of work include urban infrastructure and service delivery financing, housing and slum rehabilitation, urban sector public finance, and urban environmental infrastructure planning, management, and investment, alternatives.
Shubhagato formally led the Support to National Policies for Urban Poverty Reduction project, a collaboration between the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and India’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation to develop pro-poor urban policies in 20 cities across 15 states. Prior to this, he has also worked on issues of urban development with a wide range of other public, private, multilateral, and non governmental organisations, including the World Bank, the Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC), the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) and The Action Research Unit. In addition Shubhagato has also been worked on private sector participation projects in urban and drinking water programs in eastern and southern Africa for the International Finance Corporation and the Acumen Fund.
Shubhagato Dasgupta was trained as an architect at the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology in Ahmedabad and holds an MSc in housing and development planning from the Development Planning Unit of the University College London. He is also currently undertaking a PhD at the Centre for Urban Studies at the University of Amsterdam.
Senior Social Development Specialist – Anju Dwivedi
Anju Dwivedi is a social development specialist with a Masters in Anthropology, working in the development sector for 29 years. She has worked with civil society organizations, State, and national Governments on promoting community engagement and strengthening leadership of marginalized communities, undertaking policy research and capacity building support for the National and State Programs and Schemes on Housing, Poverty Alleviation and Water and Sanitation, in both rural and urban geographies. She led the Scaling City Institutions for India (SCI-FI) Supplementary Grant at the Centre for Policy Research for supporting FSM in two cities in Odisha from 2015-20 under the BMGF supported programme. Also led initiatives of Urban Rural convergence in the State of Odisha. She is currently working as a Senior Social Development specialist in Scaling City Institutions for Asia and India at Global Water Sanitation Centre, Asian Institute of Technology to support inclusion of marginalized communities in WASH under CWIS framework. She has been supporting the State government and partners in promoting inclusive sanitation. She has also led various research as part of SCI-FI team on Gender, Equity and Social Inclusion and contributed to drafting Odisha Urban Sanitation Policy and Strategy and 2017 as well as Inclusive Urban Sanitation Policy 2024. She was a team lead in many assignments in collaboration with the World Bank on Poverty Social Impact Assessment, Stakeholder Engagement Plan and Institutional Review of Health and Education Programmes and for Adolescents in Meghalaya. She has written research articles, research reports, opinion pieces on sanitation and has co authored a book published by Routledge on Social Innovations in urban Sanitation: Meeting unmet needs.
Senior Policy and Urban Development Specialist – Anindita Mukherjee
Anindita is currently working as a Senior Policy and Urban Development Specialist at the Global Water and Sanitation Centre (GWSC) at AIT where I led the mainstreaming of City Wise Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) in India and select states through policy and data system interventions. My responsibilities include conducting critical policy research on slum upgrading programs, analyzing institutional frameworks in the water sanitation regulatory space across South Asian countries, and assessing financial management aspects of water and sanitation planning in urban and rural areas.
Before this, she worked with the Centre for Policy Research, where her work extensively focused on areas related to slum upgrading, basic services provision, economics of sanitation service delivery in India, monitoring and evaluation of public schemes and programmes, private sector participation, economic and planning issues related to urban development, land management and urban sanitation.I led efforts to link sanitation and land-planning-housing interventions with the Governments of Odisha and Punjab. I co-designed intervention and operational frameworks for slum upgrading, ensuring equity, safety, and sustainability of service delivery among marginalized urban poor communities. My research focused on urban migration, the need for migrant housing, and policy gaps affecting urban development in the global south.
She has also supported the formulation of various housing and sanitation policies and national, state and local government programmes. Her key sectors of expertise include urban economics, inclusion, housing & urban basic services (water & sanitation) for the poor and other marginalized sections of society, and faecal sludge and septage management (FSM), among others. Spanning almost 20 years of her career, she has worked with different sector partners: Government agencies such as MoHUA, various State Governments, urban local bodies, CSOs, and other bilateral agencies such as erstwhile DFID, GIZ India, the World Bank and ADB. Anindita specializes in statistics and econometrics.
Senior WASH Specialist – Dr. Hrudanand Mohanty
Dr Hrudananda Mohanty is an experienced WASH professional with a doctorate degree on International Relations from JNU, New Delhi. He has more than 25 years of professional experience, with over 17 years in the water and sanitation sector. He has worked for the urban water sector reforms for the Government of Odisha, under the USAID supported project and the institutional improvement component of the Orissa Integrated Sanitation Improvement Project supported by JICA. He has worked with Practical Action, India for the implementation of “Project Nirmal” for the sustainable delivery of urban FSM services in the Dhenkanal and Angul towns of Odisha. While working in Scaling City Institutions for India (SCI-FI) at CPR, New Delhi, he played a pivotal role in the ground level implementation of “Urban Rural Convergence of FSM services in Dhenkanal and Angul districts. He also supported the Government of Odisha in scaling up Urban Rural Convergence for Faecal Sludge Management and Plastic Waste Management in the State of Odisha.
Currently, he is working as Senior Wash Specialist in Scaling City Institutions for Asia and India at Global Water Sanitation Centre, Asian Institute of Technology. As part of his current role, he is involved in the coordination with local stakeholders for data and interpretation for current regulatory and legislative WASH in Odisha and regulatory landscape for WASH in Asia. He has coordinated the gender indexing pilots in selected cities in India. He is also involved in developing the M & E frameworks for City Wide Inclusive Sanitation for India and Odisha and developing Case Study for CWIS and slum up-gradation and delisting in Odisha.
Legal Specialist – Dr. Isha Khurana
Dr. Isha Khurana is an experienced legal professional with a doctorate in law from the Indian Law Institute, New Delhi, and has over a decade of professional engagement. Her focus lies in conducting meticulous research and analysis, with a particular emphasis on the regulatory and legal frameworks governing rights-based urban public service delivery, notably in the realms of urban water supply and sanitation.
During her tenure as a Senior Research Associate with the Scaling City Institutions for India (SCI-FI) Initiative at CPR, she undertook extensive studies examining the regulatory landscapes of urban sanitation across various select geographies of Asia. She played a pivotal role in the development of regulatory instruments aimed at ensuring the rights-based provision of urban sanitation and basic civic services, including water and sanitation for slum dwellers. Additionally, she provided vital support through the preparation of legal documentation such as MoUs and LoUs, facilitating the convergence of sanitation infrastructure at the state level in Odisha.
In her current capacity as a Legal Specialist at the Global Water Sanitation Centre, Asian Institute of Technology, she continues to focus on the enhancement of regulatory frameworks for WASH in Odisha, including the regulatory reform. She is also involved in crafting a M&E framework for City Wide Inclusive Sanitation for India, with special emphasis on Odisha. Further, she is also involved in exploring institutional and adjudicatory arrangements for mitigating river pollution and elucidating their interconnections with safe sanitation practices.
Urban Planning Specialist – Baisakhi Sarkar Dhar
Baisakhi is trained as an Architect Urban Planner with over a decade of experience in the areas of urban planning and management with specific focus on policies and programmes on urban development, slum upgradation, affordable housing & urban basic services for the poor and issues pertaining to land and land tenure in urban areas. Currently, she works as an Urban Planning Specialist with SCI AI at GWSC, where she support activities related to Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS), urban-rural convergence, and data monitoring for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) keeping urban poor at centre. Previously, at CPR, she supported in formulating guidelines, strategies, and standard operating procedures for state governments to unlock land and enable slum upgrading, integrating urban poor settlements into the city fabric. She has also worked with the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, on capacity-building projects under JnNURM, AMRUT, and the Smart City Mission. Her experience includes procurement and contract management of large-scale infrastructure projects funded by ADB and the World Bank. Additionally, She have contributed to various projects aimed at improving livability in urban poor communities, funded by ADB, World Bank, GIZ, FCDO, ON, and BMGF. She holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture, from IIEST, Shibpur and a master’s degree in city Planning from IIT, Kharagpur. She has also acquired an MSc in Urban Management and Development, from Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Urban Data and Governance Specialist – Abhinav Kumar
Abhinav has more than nine years of experience as a policy researcher in the social development sector. Currently, he is working as Urban Data and Governance expert with the Global Water and Sanitation Centre, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. Prior to this he has worked as Senior Research Associate with the Centre for Policy Research. He has an M.A. in Development, specializing in Law and Governance, from the Azim Premji University, Bangalore.
His work is focused on policy research, implementation, and monitoring in the Water and Sanitation sector. He also works on strengthening public data systems for enabling robust monitoring and evaluation of CWIS and gender equity and social inclusion. He also has experience of developing GIS based web applications for spatial analysis and planning.
He has co-authored several research reports on issues related to gender equity and social inclusion, role of CBOs in promoting equity in WASH, social protection of sanitation workers. He has also worked on poverty and social impact assessment and institutional analysis for improving health and education of adolescent girls and boys for multi-lateral organizations like the World Bank.
Spatial Data Specialist – Shaurya Gupta
Shaurya Gupta is trained Architect, Urban Planner with nearly three years of experience, holding a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Amity University, Lucknow, and a master’s degree in urban planning from CEPT University, Ahmedabad. Her expertise lies in urban planning, leveraging data-driven methodologies for bottom-up research, planning, and spatial data analytics.
At the SCI-FI Initiative at CPR, she conducted in-depth research in water and sanitation, spatial data analysis, and supported the urban-rural convergence approach in Odisha. Additionally, she documented national and international case studies on land-based instruments for urban redevelopment.
Currently, she works as a Spatial Data Specialist at SCI-AI at GWSC, AIT. Her research spans integrating WASH into Disaster Risk Reduction frameworks, conducting comparative data analysis on Gender equity and Inclusion in WASH, and geo-spatial analysis of urbanization and land use data among others. Additionally, she has played a crucial role in reviewing M&E indicators for WASH, drawing insights from various national and international frameworks. Shaurya also contributed to the development of the SCI-AI Datahub and co-authored a study on Product Diversification in Public Housing Supply, highlighting her commitment to data-driven urban planning solutions.