DMEO

Government schemes need somebody watching whether they actually work. Inside NITI Aayog, that job belongs to the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO).

The workbook uses DMEO as a real-world example. It shows what the outsourcing model for social impact assessment looks like. Not every body has impact-evaluation skill in-house. Sometimes it brings in outside experts instead.

Most of the time, DMEO does its work internally. On some occasions, it outsources the work. It hands the job to reputed external agencies instead.

DMEO illustrates the Outsourcing Model discussed in section 7.2.1 — one of several organisational models the workbook covers for structuring an impact evaluation, alongside the Fully Integrated Model and the DIY model.

Where DMEO outsources, it does not simply hand the work to any agency. The workbook states DMEO has set up a panel of expert agencies across six sectors:

External agencies for a given impact evaluation are drawn from the relevant sub-sector within this panel, selected through a competitive bidding process — so outsourcing here is structured and pre-vetted, not an ad hoc choice of whichever consultant is available.

Illustrative figures.

DMEO is asked to evaluate a central government skilling scheme spanning 18 states, with an annual outlay of ₹850 crore. DMEO's own internal evaluation capacity is stretched across several other schemes at the same time, so it decides to outsource this evaluation.

Because the scheme falls under the Social Welfare Sector, DMEO selects an evaluator from its pre-empanelled panel of agencies for that sector, through competitive bidding — rather than approaching an agency informally.

The selected evaluator conducts the assessment and reports findings back to DMEO, which retains oversight of the process even though the fieldwork itself was outsourced. This is the workbook's model of how a large government body can access specialised impact-evaluation expertise without having to build that capacity for every scheme in-house.

Chapter 7 (Social Impact Assessment Reporting), section 7.2.1 (Outsourcing Model), uses DMEO as its worked example of when and how organisations outsource impact evaluation. Expect a question naming DMEO's parent body (NITI Aayog), and a question naming the six panel sectors or the selection method (competitive bidding).

• DMEO sits within NITI Aayog, not within SEBI or a Social Stock Exchange — it is cited as an illustration of the outsourcing model, not as part of the SSE's own regulatory machinery.
• DMEO does not outsource every evaluation — the workbook says it carries out monitoring and evaluation internally "most of the time," and outsources only "on some occasions."
• Six named sectors, not five or seven — Agriculture & Allied, Economic, Energy, Infrastructure, Social, and Social Welfare.
• Agencies are selected through competitive bidding from a pre-set panel, not appointed directly — this is what distinguishes DMEO's outsourcing model from an informal consultancy arrangement.