SIA Case Studies — the ground floor

Why a whole chapter of case studies?

Chapters 5 to 7 told you what an SIA is. This chapter shows you what one looks like. The workbook takes five projects, each tied to a draft Social Impact Assessment Standard (SAS), and walks through the assessment. Then it writes a full sample SIA report for the fifth case.

The exam uses this chapter for applied, case-based questions. You will be given a project and asked what an assessor should measure, which tool fits, and what counts as a challenge.

The skeleton every case follows

Three things repeat in almost every case:

• Data collection tools: Key Informant Interviews (KII), Focus Group Discussions (FGD) and quantitative surveys.
• Key metrics are collated from baseline, mid-line (monthly / quarterly) and end-line assessments.
• Indicators are split into quantitative and qualitative criteria, called illustrative key impact indicators.

Note the difference between the two lists in Section III. Challenges are problems the stakeholders faced in the project. Limitations are problems with the assessment — such as missing baseline data.

Case 8.1 — Watershed management (draft SAS 500)

SAS 500: ensuring environmental sustainability, addressing climate change including mitigation and adaptation, forest and wildlife conservation.

Who: AB Responsible Services, a social enterprise not-for-profit organisation in Maharashtra, with more than 15 years of experience in watershed programmes.

The problem: Ratnagiri and Raigad districts get heavy monsoon rain but face extreme water shortage. The hilly terrain between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea means high runoff to the sea, and storage is expensive to build.

The project: an integrated water/watershed management programme (IWMP) to conserve soil, harvest runoff, recharge groundwater, create green belts and raise farm productivity. Activities: check dams, farm ponds, desilting, borewell recharge, and drinking-water pipelines.

Scale: 18 villages, population 25,000. Investment: ₹45.3 lakh.

Assessment design:

• Stakeholders: direct beneficiaries (villagers, farmers, local business owners), the implementing team, local government (Panchayat, Taluka and District officials), and environmental NGOs.
• Questionnaires designed and data collected by AB Responsible Services itself.
• 5% sample of direct beneficiaries from the 18 villages.
• 20 FGDs, 10 KIIs, 500 quantitative surveys; physical inspection of check dams, borewells, farm ponds and pipelines.
• Evaluation questions under four heads: IWMP implementation, impact on agriculture, impact on health and standard of living, impact on environment.

Quantitative results:

Qualitative results include better living and health conditions, better awareness of watershed practices, new jobs maintaining structures, more hydraulic energy generation, changes in soil quality and green cover, more horticulture, and changes in migration patterns.

Limitations: no baseline data on all indicators (especially qualitative); overlapping stakeholders (farmers are also community members); respondents unable to answer some quantitative questions.

Case 8.2 — Eye care (draft SAS 200)

SAS 200: promoting health care including mental healthcare, sanitation and making available safe drinking water.

Who: ABC Foundation, working on cataract-related blindness in rural India, with local governments, healthcare providers and corporate donors (CSR funding).

How: mobile eye camps for free screening → referral for free cataract surgery at partner hospitals → post-surgery follow-up.

First-year scale (summary): over 50,000 screened and 5,000 cataract surgeries.

Assessment design: 5% sample of beneficiaries (surgery recipients and screening participants) across 20 villages; 20 FGDs, 10 KIIs, 500 surveys; visits to eye camps and partner hospitals. Five evaluation questions on access, health outcomes, awareness, the role of communities and providers, and sustainability.

Quantitative results: over 10,000 direct beneficiaries of surgery; 30,000+ indirect; 70% increase in screenings in remote areas; 85% improvement in vision outcomes; 60% of providers were women; 50% reduction in cataract blindness in targeted villages; 90% increase in follow-up attendance; 40% improvement in awareness; 30% reduction in disability-related absenteeism; over 200 villages supported.

Challenges: infrastructure gaps, awareness barriers, cultural barriers, resource constraints (especially post-surgery care), logistics. Limitations: inconsistent baseline data, variation across villages, difficulty quantifying behaviour change, limited sample size due to wide geography.

Case 8.3 — Women's healthcare (draft SAS 400)

SAS 400: promoting gender equality, empowerment of women and LGBTQIA+ communities.

Who: NGO Sakhi, running a Women Healthcare Program in rural India focused on maternal and reproductive health.

How: mobile health clinics (prenatal care, vaccinations, family planning counselling); awareness workshops attended by over 15,000 women; training local health workers; sanitary pad distribution; low-cost safe deliveries with local hospitals; mental health support for new mothers.

Summary figures: over 25,000 women benefited from mobile clinics; more than 2,000 received mental health support.

Assessment design: 15% sample across 20 villages; 20 FGDs, 8 KIIs, 750 surveys.

Quantitative results: over 20,000 women directly benefited; 50,000+ indirect; 75% more healthcare access in remote areas; 80% better maternal health knowledge; 65% received prenatal care; 60% reduction in maternal mortality in high-risk areas; 90% attendance at workshops and clinic visits; 30% better postnatal care practices; 40% decrease in child marriage; 120 villages supported.

Challenges: infrastructure gaps, resource constraints, cultural barriers, workforce challenges (retaining health workers due to low wages and hard conditions), awareness gaps. Limitations: inconsistent baseline data, overlap of roles among stakeholders, difficulty quantifying behaviour, regional variation.

Case 8.4 — Financial inclusion (draft SAS 1300)

SAS 1300: promotion of financial inclusion.

Who: CP LLP, a for-profit enterprise, running E-Diksha for financial and digital literacy in Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Haryana.

Scale: over 2.5 lakh people. Investment: about ₹3.45 crore. The project got a boost after demonetisation and Covid-19, as people shifted to digital transactions.

Session topics: bank accounts, ATM cards, loans/savings/insurance, net and mobile banking, BHIM/UPI/PayTM, basic financial management, government schemes.

Assessment design: tools designed and conducted by a market research company; 8% sample of direct beneficiaries from all three states; Google forms for other stakeholders; desk review including RBI financial inclusion data, Jan Dhan Yojana data and National Digital Literacy Mission data; consulting agency representatives attended sessions.

Quantitative results:

Limitations: participants unable to communicate learnings; limited data on non-formal sources; hard to separate E-Diksha's impact from other government and non-government efforts.

Case 8.5 — Affordable housing (draft SAS 1100)

SAS 1100: slum area development, affordable housing and other interventions to build sustainable and resilient cities. The sample report aligns it with SDG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities.

Who: Swagruha, a not-for-profit in Mumbai. It also helps beneficiaries enrol in Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana for housing subsidy. Overall, it impacted over 11,000 people in Maharashtra.

Project Niwas: repaired homes of 1,265 families in Mumbai slums — domestic helpers, waste pickers, vegetable vendors, labourers. Work: cracks, plastering, painting, doors and roofs, toilets, and overhead tanks or water filtration plants. Spend: about ₹4.67 crore, January 2019 to December 2022.

Assessment design: data tools designed and data collected by Swagruha; 15% sample of direct beneficiaries; random interviews with contractors, suppliers and local government.

Quantitative results: 1,265 families helped; 62% of families living in damaged houses are waste pickers; 75% now have improved toilets; 23% got government subsidy; average annual saving of about ₹10,000 earlier spent on repairs; 35% drop in crime; 32% of members got construction jobs; 83% have safe drinking water; 95% feel safer; 93% feel confident facing disasters.

Challenges: illegal structures; getting permissions to rebuild; lack of space; beneficiaries' attitude to free housing. Limitations: beneficiaries unwilling to share financial information, and not comfortable without Swagruha's community workers.

The sample SIA report (built on Niwas)

The workbook says it used the report template from Chapter 5. It is a brief illustration; a real report can be expanded and tailored.

Addressed to: the Managing Director of the enterprise.

Section I — Context. About the project, the responsibilities of the reporting entity and the assessor, and confirmation of standards.

• The Responsible Party (Swagruha) agrees to: keep processes, controls and documents audit ready; keep open communication; set common expectations in writing; provide additional system and financial information on time; give access to experts and contractors; keep to timeframes; work together to discover and correct audit impediments; and agree how assurance will be obtained.
• The Social Impact Assessment Organisation undertakes to: set the extent of the audit programme; identify internal and external issues, risks and opportunities; select competent audit teams; set up processes (scheduling, objectives, scope, criteria, methods); monitor, review and improve the programme; and communicate it to the audit client.
• The report states it conforms to SAS 1100, and the assessor, with an SRO registration number, confirms applying the code of conduct issued by the SRO.

Section II — Scope, approach and methodology.

• Scope: Niwas activities 2019 to 2022 in Dharavi Slum Phase 2, covering 1,265 families.
• Selection criteria: people in the informal sector with very low income living in damaged or dilapidated housing.
• Random sample from 1,265 families; 190 families interviewed. Also interviewed: project team, contractors, municipal authorities.
• Limitation: beneficiaries would not share income and savings data, and were more comfortable with Swagruha's community workers than with the assessment team.
• Vision: "Empowering Communities, Enriching Lives". Mission: "Building Homes, Transforming Lives".
• Four objectives with activities, a full inputs → activities → outputs → outcomes → impact chart, and eight KPIs.

The eight KPIs:

Section III — Findings, gaps, recommendations, voices.

Key findings:

• 50% of beneficiary families are waste pickers in dilapidated or kaccha houses; 20% are domestic helpers; the rest are other informal workers.
• 90% of houses needed repair — mainly roofs, toilets and water supply.
• About 875 families could not be included — no proper documents or illegal structures.
• 30% of respondents said repair material was not good or durable.
• Contractor selection was sometimes biased, based on personal contacts.
• Cleanliness and hygiene improved significantly; families were satisfied.

Gaps: people in illegal structures or without documents were completely excluded; some beneficiaries used fake documents; a per-beneficiary fund limit excluded houses needing major repair or rebuilding.

Recommendations: a proper selection or tendering process for contractors; a savings scheme with a financing firm or bank so beneficiaries can fund future repairs.

Stakeholders speak: Savitri, a domestic helper who has lived there more than 15 years, says it feels like a brand-new house with clean water and toilets. Rajshree, a waste picker with three daughters, can now leave them at home safely and go to work.

Section IV — Annexures and inherent limitation. The report is not an opinion, attestation, certification or any form of assurance, and the procedures are not an examination or review under generally accepted auditing or attestation standards. It is signed by the firm (a Chartered Accountants firm / SIA organisation / independent assessor) with its SRO registration number, the partner's membership number, place and date.

Lessons from the workbook's own case questions

The chapter ends with two practice cases. The reasoning in their answers is worth learning.

Case 1 — a for-profit skilling organisation in Bhopal. It trains youth in 20 areas and had trained 8,624 youth by March 2022, spending ₹1.20 crore.

• Drawbacks of documenting participant case studies: they cover only achievement at the individual level, and they cannot capture logical change over time, because they are written after implementation. (Capturing personal experience is an advantage; case studies can reveal gaps.)
• Challenge of integrated SIA: no flexibility to change indicators once built into the system.
• SIA challenge: no accurate data on trainees' employment after they leave — they are hard to trace.
• Constraint on impact (not an SIA challenge): market demand not matching the skills trained.

Case 2 — the Smile oral-hygiene project in rural Karnataka, for children aged 6 to 14, reaching 67,238 children.

• Hardest approach: monetisation — dental costs appear only later in life.
• Hardest data tool: questionnaires, since respondents must fill them in. Interviews, unstructured interviews and observation work with children.
• Not a sampling criterion: changes in sales of dental products — that is an impact indicator.
• Objective of the SIA (not of the project): to understand the reduction in oral health issues among children.
• Benefit to parents: monitoring children's habits and motivating others to run similar projects. Publicity and strategy changes benefit management.