CRPs in each of these districts, primarily due to idiosyncrasies in schedules and other obligations on the day of the survey. We interviewed 40 CRPs from SERP out of a total of 120 who were actively working in Rajasthan at the time of the survey.<sup>21</sup> We supplement this qualitative and quantitative data with two other sources of secondary data that are intended to provide perspectives on the operational aspects of the program as well as its impact.

<u>A survey of RRLP districts: A baseline survey of RRLP districts was conducted in early 2012</u> with the intention of evaluating the impact of the program. For the purposes of this paper we focus on the “treatment” areas where RRLP was scheduled to work in order to check if Intensive and Resource blocks had statistically similar characteristics prior to the entry of NRLM facilitators. This sub-sample consists of 3,852 households with 6 villages sampled per block in each of the 32 RRLP treatment blocks, scattered across 17 districts.<sup>22</sup> <u>Administrative data:</u> Aggregate block-level outcomes are obtained from the Rajasthan government’s online progress report. We examine block-level outcomes of SHG performance as well as outcomes of individual SHG members to compare the performance of Intensive and Resource blocks. A comparison of individual SHG members in Intensive and Resource blocks is done using a survey of 302 women, split across the two types of blocks in October 2014.

# Analysis

We should first note that the two types of blocks were largely well matched prior to the start of the project. Using the baseline household survey data, we can compare pre-program differences between the Resource Blocks and Intensive Blocks. These results are presented in Table 1. The Resource Blocks appear to have fewer SC/ST (Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe) members and slightly higher rates of home ownership, but most differences between the two groups are small and not statistically significant, particularly when it comes to existing levels of SHG membership.

Our qualitative research suggests that RRLP staff and program directors had some knowledge and familiarity with NGOs that were working in at least two of the intensive blocks. However, the operational scale of these institutions was small, and since the selection of blocks for the two

> 21 We originally sent survey enumerators to Andhra Pradesh to interview the SERP facilitators while they were home and taking a break from their rotations in Rajasthan. The head of the organization however, denied our surveyors access and refused to allow any surveys in the state of Andhra Pradesh. We were able to complete our surveys with tremendous difficulty only when the women went back to Rajasthan. The Government of Rajasthan allowed the surveys and overruled the NGO’s directives. The busy schedules of the SERP facilitators however, made it impossible to interview all women on a particular day – the division of labor between the women required some women to be constantly working on either cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, going out into the village to conduct mobilizations, and/or record key data and report this to headquarters.

> 22 2,914 control households in 6 villages sampled per block in each of the 19 non-RRLP blocks in the same districts as the treatment villages were also surveyed, but we do not analyze the control data in this paper.

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