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Journalism of Courage
The Government of India on Monday (February 27) suspended the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) licence of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR). This came five months after the Income Tax department conducted ‘surveys’ on the premises of the CPR, Oxfam India, and the Independent and Public Spirited Media Foundation (IPSMF), which funds a range of digital media entities.
Officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs told The Indian Express that the FCRA licence was suspended following prima facie inputs regarding the violation of funding norms. “Inquiry is going on. Further decisions will be taken within six months,” an official said.
The CPR was established in 1973 as a think tank with the mission to contribute to “a more robust public discourse about the issues that impact life in India.” Over the years it has cultivated a reputation as one of the country’s premier public policy think tanks and “a non-profit, non-partisan, independent institution dedicated to conducting research that contributes to high quality scholarship, better policies”, according to its website.
Its headquarters is located in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.
The CPR covers a broad range of subjects, with experts from different fields working under its aegis to conduct policy-oriented research. According to its website, research areas include “air pollution, climate change, economy, education, environmental law & justice, energy & electricity, federalism, governance, accountability & public finance, health & nutrition, Indian politics, international relations & security, jobs, land rights, sanitation, social justice, state capacity, technology, urbanisation, and water”.
A lot of the work CPR does is oriented towards helping policy-makers and authorities to make better, more well-informed decisions. For instance, “Renewing India’s Air Quality Management Strategy in the Shadow of COVID-19” by Santosh Harish was published in 2021 and provides an overview of the current state of knowledge and the governance framework on air quality management in India. It then lays out a broad policy framework which can be adopted to address the situation.
The CPR also conducts research on specific government schemes and policies in order to improve them or learn from them in the future. A recent study (February 2023) by Neeha Susan Jacob, Anwesha Mallick and Avani Kapur looks at the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin, delving into issues such as “allocations and cost estimates, releases and expenditures, target completion and physical progress of house construction, and payments to eligible citizens”.
The scholarship is technical and oriented towards addressing tangible problems and concerns. Notably, according to its website, the institution does not take a collective position on issues – CPR’s scholars have the autonomy to express their individual views.
Over the years, some of India’s foremost scholars, public intellectuals, and bureaucrats have been associated with the CPR in various capacities. The Centre was founded by noted economist and former secretary general of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), DH Pai Panandiker.
Other famous former members of the CPR’s governing body include economist and former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, former Chief Justice of India YV Chandrachud, ace journalist BV Verghese and public intellectual Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Yamini Aiyer has been the president of the CPR since 2017 with Meenakshi Gopinath as the chairperson. Other members of the governing board include Former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, Former Tata Communications chairperson Subodh Bhargava and independent management consultant Rama Bijapurkar.
In the half a century of its existence, the CPR has provided opportunities to many scholars interested in working in the public policy space in India to conduct research under its setup. As of March 31, 2022, the CPR’s total number of faculty and staff (including part-time employees) stood at 237.
The CPR is recognised as a not-for-profit society by the Government of India, and contributions to it are tax-exempt. According to its 2021-22 annual report, CPR received government grants from the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of Meghalaya and Government of Andhra Pradesh.
Beyond government funding, the CPR also receives grants from a variety of domestic and international sources. Some of these sources are the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (USA), William & Flora Hewlett Foundation (USA), Macarthur Foundation (USA), UNICEF, and the World Bank.
In 2021-22, it raised a total of Rs 19.26 crore in funding with ICSSR’s recurring grant amounting to 2.1 per cent of its gross receipts for the fiscal year, according to its annual report.
