Public and Social Sector
The objective is not profit. Beneficiaries, outcomes per rupee, and constraints a company would never face.
- Beneficiary: who exactly?
- Outcome: which number should move?
- Delivery: how it reaches them
- Funding: who pays, for how long?
Watch out: Pick one outcome you can count; awareness is not an outcome.
On a case
Raise girls' secondary-school enrolment in a district.
- Beneficiary: girls aged 14 to 17
- Outcome: share enrolled and attending
- Delivery: bicycles, toilets, scholarships
- Funding: state scheme and CSR
Illustrative case. Figures and conditions below are assumptions for practice, not market data.
Define success as sustained enrolment and attendance for girls aged 14 to 17, rather than money spent or bicycles distributed. Ask which beneficiaries are excluded by distance, safety, household responsibilities or school capacity.
Assume a transport programme costs Rs 20 lakh and leads to 200 additional girls attending, while scholarships cost Rs 15 lakh and lead to 100. The illustrative costs are Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000 per additional attendee. Check whether the estimates measure comparable outcomes over the same period.
Prefer the transport option only if it reaches the intended girls and schools can accommodate them. A cheaper average may hide exclusion of remote villages or disabled pupils. Pilot the intervention, track attendance and learning, and compare changes with a credible baseline rather than crediting every new enrolment to the programme.
Sources and further reading
- HM Treasury: The Green Book (2026)
Guidance on comparing options, costs, benefits, uncertainty and distributional effects. This is appraisal methodology, not Indian legal guidance.