Chairperson of the Madras School of Economics (MSE) and former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor C. Rangarajan on Thursday said microstudies could help policymakers understand the gap between policy design and implementation and improve outcomes in human development programmes.
Speaking at the launch of the books From Field to Policy: Six New Volumes of Microstudies in Human Development at MSE, he said: “It is not enough to say that schools are being opened or teachers are being appointed. What happened to the learning of the students? Did learning actually happen? That is where quality becomes important,” he said.
Mr. Rangarajan said policymakers needed to listen more to experiences from the field while formulating policies. If a programme failed, it was important to determine whether the problem lay in its design or implementation.
Amarjeet Sinha, retired IAS officer and senior fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, who spearheaded the project, said the series brought together 192 contributors from academia, civil society, policymaking, and other fields to examine what worked, what did not, and the challenges faced on the ground.
Former Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan, who was among the editors of the health volume, said the books were unusual in that they were intended for multiple audiences — students, teachers, and policymakers. “This was done not just as some book-type exercise. It was very human. There was a lot of humanity in putting this together, and we felt there was a purpose,” she said.
The six volumes, published by Routledge, are available through open access. T. Sundararaman, former executive director, National Health Systems Research Centre, New Delhi; Sekhar Bonu, professor, Indian School of Public Policy; V.R. Muraleedharan, professor emeritus, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT-Madras; N.R. Bhanumurthy, director, MSE, and M. Suresh Babu, director, Madras Institute of Development Studies, were present.
Published – September 17, 2026 09:28 pm IST
