RESEARCH: ANTYODAYA ANNA YOJANA

Survey Questionnaires 

There are six questionnaires in all:

Village: This questionnaire records basic village-level information on population, access to different kinds of facilities such as schools and healthcare, as well as caste, occupational, and land-holding profiles. It also collects information on the number of Antyodaya cards issued, the process of selection, and the working of the scheme in the perception of the village sarpanch.

Antyodaya list: This questionnaire records information about the caste, occupation, ownership of land, and size of households as they are recorded in the official Antyodaya list, which is to be collected before visiting the actual households.

Public Distribution System (PDS): This questionnaire records information collected from the dealer of the PDS shop which serves the village. This includes information on the number of Antyodaya cards from that particular village, the amount of grain distributed every month to these households as a whole, the commissions and costs to the dealer in running the scheme, and whether or not, in the dealer's perception, the selection of households has been fair.

Antyodaya Households: This is a detailed questionnaire on the situation of households in the official Antyodaya list. This includes information on caste, occupation, land, child labour, whether or not the household has had difficulty feeding its members in the last year, and how it has coped in such circumstances. The questionnaire also collects information on how well the Antyodaya scheme functions: whether the household is aware of and able to collect its full monthly quota at the correct price, how easy it was to obtain the Antyodaya card, and how important the scheme is for family welfare. Finally, the questionnaire records information about consumption habits and the experience of destitution.

Excluded Households: This questionnaire is intended for destitute households which do not possess Antyodaya cards; these are to be identified through informal enquiries from local residents. The information collected is substantially the same as in the questionnaire intended for Antyodaya households (above).

There is an additional investigator questionnaire, used to record the investigator's personal assessment of how well the Antyodaya scheme is functioning, on the basis of observations made during the survey.