Punjab govt signs deal for research-based policy making

Punjab government today signed an agreement with a research organisation which would assist it in formulation and evaluation of various schemes in key sectors like health, school education, social welfare, labour and employment.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by Punjab chief secretary Karan Avtar Singh with Shobhini Mukerji, executive director of Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, South Asia (J-PAL SA) here, as per an official release.
The meeting was chaired by Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal.
The collaboration aims to institutionalise an evidence-based approach to policy making in order to maximise the impact of the state's anti-poverty programmes, it said.

J-PAL is an international research network known for its impact evaluations of development programmes and has over 145 affiliated professors from top universities including MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, London School of Economics and FLAME Pune, it added.