Professional Experience:
At Transform Rural India (TRI), I worked on local governance, public finance, research and knowledge management. I documented success stories of women Sarpanch, focusing on leadership, gender, governance and NRM, and carried out impact assessments of the Gram Panchayat Coordination Committee (GPCC) to provide feedback to block teams on planning and implementation. Soon after joining TRI, I undertook a field and research exercise on Gram Panchayat Own Source Revenue (OSR) in MP and CG. I visited high and low performing GPs and interacted with elected representatives, frontline workers and CBO members to understand good practices and constraints in OSR generation. I also compiled relevant state Acts, rules and notifications. The findings informed TRI's OSR strategy and the document was shared with Panchayati Raj departments/directorates in MP, CG and Bihar. I also led public finance capacity building for staff across states and provided oversight to an external partner engaged for Panchayat Finance Management training.
At CBGA, I worked extensively on public finance and policy research. I analysed annual Union and state budgets, focusing on agriculture and allied sectors in MP and CG, and supported work in Jharkhand. This included sector and scheme analysis using govt datasets, field observations and district-level data collected from administration. Findings were presented through district and state consultations, including pre-budget discussions shared with relevant departments. We created district-level CSO collectives of farmers, farmer organizations, NGOs, local leaders and some govt officials. Separate WA groups for MP and CG enabled regular engagement through short notes, polls, flyers and articles; some district groups later began meeting independently to raise agriculture and allied sector issues. I conducted studies on MP's e-Uparjan service, Chhattisgarh's Godhan Nyay Yojana and a larger study on budgeting, planning and implementation practices across agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries and KVKs. Interviews with district officials helped identify delayed releases, utilisation bottlenecks, weak planning and timing-related implementation gaps.
In my first tenure (April- Sept 2019) at Samarthan as Block Coordinator in Rajpur, Barwani, I managed cluster coordinators, supported trainings, donor reporting and success-story documentation, and coordinated with block and district administration on local development work.
During my second tenure (July 2021- Feb 2024) at Samarthan, I was part of the PMU and supported annual planning, proposal writing, donor reporting, programme monitoring and documentation across governance, gender and agriculture. I managed Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and the website, wrote blogs and supported consultations and meeting documentation. I conducted field visits to provide feedback to programme teams and led a study on Jal Jeevan Mission implementation in MP, developed into a policy document and presented in a consultation with the State Minister for PHED. I also presented budget analysis of the WCD department in a meeting with MP Planning and served on the Internal Complaints Committee under the POSH Act.
At WWF-India, I worked with forest-dependent Baiga and Gond communities in the Kanha-Achanakmar landscape. My work focused on sustainable livelihoods through millet and forest-honey value chains, sustainable honey collection training, bookkeeping, market linkages, alternative livelihoods and women CBO institution building. I worked closely with MP-DAY-SRLM, Zila Panchayat and district administration. On Community Forest Rights, I supported communities in mapping and rectifying traditional user areas, identifying shared resources and discussing inter-village arrangements for their management.