This was a collaborative project with Jun-ichi Okabe of the Yokohama National University. A book by J. Okabe and Aparajita Bakshi on the subject has been published as A New Statistical Domain in India.

Two papers based on this research have also been published:

A new statistical domain has emerged in rural India as a consequence of the Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act, 1992, a domain based on the needs and constitutional functions of the village panchayat.

With the creation of a new structure of local government, the contemporary village panchayat requires statistical databases for the development functions that have been allocated to it. In the formulation of the Expert Committee on Basic Statistics for Local Level Development (BSLLD), the village panchayat “should consolidate, maintain and own village level data.”

The objective of the book was to study panchayat-level databases and their potential use in local-level administration, planning, and policy implementation. The authors studied the overall status of local-level data available in two contrasting village panchayats, Raina village panchayat, Barddhaman district, West Bengal and Warwat Khanderao village panchayat, Buldhana district, Maharashtra.

As part of the study, the authors examined all records maintained by the concerned village panchayats and by other important panchayat-level departments and institutions, such as Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) centres, primary schools, health centres, revenue offices, agricultural offices, and block development offices. They conducted interviews on the process of record-keeping and the use of accumulated data with officials from panchayats, officers of other departments, Block Development Officers, ICDS officials, and land revenue and agricultural officials. The study attempted to understand the current and potential use of such records in decentralised development planning, the periodicity at which the records are updated, and the reliability and accuracy of such records.

A specific and unique aspect of the book is its attempt to evaluate of the accuracy of certain panchayat-level databases. To assess the reliability of important household-level database available with the panchayat, such as the ICDS registers, Civil Registration System birth registers, and BPL survey data, the authors conducted a micro-discrepancy analysis that compared the panchayat data with data collected by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies in the two villages.