Consulting Support on Rural Roads, Border Proximity, and Urea Leakage in India

1. Background

This consultancy is being undertaken under the ongoing project, Ensuring Inclusiveness, Sustainability, and Efficiency of Food System Transformation in the ASEAN and BIMSTEC countries (ATMI-II), which works across Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam to strengthen institutional capacity for evidence-based policymaking on agricultural transformation and market integration. As part of the project's activities, IFPRI is hiring a suitable consultant for a short-term engagement to support an analytical study on the spatial pattern of possible urea leakage in India.

India operates one of the world's largest fertilizer subsidy programs. Urea is sold at a nationally uniform Maximum Retail Price (MRP), administratively allocated through the Fertilizer Management System (FMS), and its movement is governed by the Movement Control Order. This creates a substantial and persistent price wedge between Indian urea and urea sold in neighboring countries, generating incentives for cross-border diversion. At the same time, subsidized agricultural urea may also be diverted domestically to industrial users who would otherwise pay market prices for technical-grade urea.

It is widely believed geography and transport connectivity play a significant role in shaping these patterns. In agricultural input markets, transport constraints affect not only access and productivity but also the movement, allocation, and possible diversion of subsidized inputs across space. Ravinutala (2016), using FMS data, estimates that roughly 36 percent of India's urea subsidy is lost through leakage to industry or cross-border smuggling. Parliamentary records also document seizure cases along the Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan borders. Although the government introduced 100 percent neem-coated urea in 2015 in part to curb diversion, the spatial distribution of leakage across districts and border corridors remains underexplored.

Against this backdrop, the present assignment will examine whether district-level connectivity and border proximity help explain the spatial pattern of possible urea leakage in India. It will assess whether districts that became better connected through the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) show larger gaps between official urea sales and estimated agricultural demand, and whether this relationship is stronger in districts near international borders. The connectivity and proximity will be measured using remote sensing and other geo-spatial methods. A first order objective will be to construct credible measures of urea leakage and to compare administrative data with cost-of-cultivation surveys.

2. Scope of Work

· Review the relevant literature on fertilizer subsidies, leakage, rural connectivity, and border-district economics and confirm data availability.

· Construct a district-year dataset combining road connectivity, border proximity, and fertilizer-related variables.

· Build a district-level measure of the gap between official urea sales and estimated farm demand and triangulate it with cost-of-cultivation survey data.

· Produce descriptive maps, tables, and summary statistics on the spatial distribution of urea leakage, PMGSY exposure, and border proximity across Indian districts.

· Conduct preliminary district panel econometric analysis to test whether greater PMGSY-driven connectivity gains are associated with larger leakage gaps, with explicit attention to border districts.

· Prepare a draft and final analytical report integrating the methodology, evidence, results, and policy implications for India and ATMI-II partner countries.

3. Deliverables and Timeline

4. Qualifications

· MSc or PhD in Economics.

· Demonstrated experience in applied quantitative research, including panel data econometrics and spatial analysis.

· Previous experience working with OpenStreetMap/Open Source Routing Machine (OSRM), GIS, remote sensing, and geo-spatial datasets is strongly preferred.

· Advanced proficiency in statistical and programming software such as Python, R, or Stata.

· Experience in handling and integrating large administrative, survey, and spatial datasets.

· Prior research experience related to agricultural input markets, fertilizer policy, rural connectivity, transport economics, or border trade in India is highly desirable.

· Familiarity with Indian agricultural and fertilizer policy systems, including subsidy mechanisms and distribution frameworks, is preferred.

· Strong analytical, data visualization, and report-writing skills.

5. Duration of the Assignment

3 Months (20 May - 20 August)