Ward amenity-gap scores showing CSR teams and councils where services fall short
TL;DR Fairgauge scores every ward in an Indian city on access to water, toilets, schools, clinics, parks and buses, measured per resident. CSR foundations pay to pick project sites they can defend, and city councils use the same scores to argue for budgets. It swaps guesswork for a public method anyone can repeat.
Services inside one Indian city can change sharply from street to street. In a Mumbai slum study of 593 households, families in non-notified pockets had worse water connections and used fewer litres a day than neighbours a few lanes away, even after accounting for income and religion[1]. Across Delhi, built-up density ranges from about 2,884 to 136,385 people per square km between areas[2], so one clinic or toilet block serves very different numbers.
National report cards stop at the city. Janaagraha's survey grades state laws and city systems[3], and the ministry's liveability rankings score cities, not wards. That leaves funders and councillors choosing sites by contacts and visibility.
Fairgauge builds a ward scorecard for one city at a time. For each ward it measures how many residents live within walking distance of a working water point, a public toilet, a government school, a primary health centre, a park and a bus stop, and then compares that with the city median. It draws on municipal asset lists, open maps, census estimates and short field checks to confirm the facilities actually work.
The output is a ranked list with a one-page sheet per ward - what's missing, how many people it affects and roughly what a fix would cost. Scores go out with the method, so a council or a CSR board can check the reasoning.
The seed proposed a general equity score. We kept the goal but tied it to physical services a funder can build, because a vague index doesn't decide where money goes. A student project in Rajkot already showed the ministry's liveability framework can be scored at ward level[4].
CSR teams and their implementing NGOs pay first, because they have to show their board why a toilet block or school upgrade went to a particular ward. They'd buy a city report or a yearly subscription. Municipal corporations and councillors are a second buyer, often through a funded partner. There's no public price for ward-level studies, and consultancy rates vary per project.
The Smart Cities Mission closed in March 2025[5], which ended a stream of central funding and put more weight on CSR and municipal budgets for local works. Open city data has grown too, and one urban-safety startup's audit scores are now shared through the India Urban Data Exchange[6].
Nobody publishes a figure for spending on ward-level equity analysis in India. Demand is easier to see in what buyers already fund - that startup's audits are backed by Delhi's government, NDMC and the World Bank across 79 cities[6]. Treat that as proof that city data work gets paid for, not as the size of this niche.
Urban-safety audit firms score streets for safety and lighting, mainly for women's mobility[6]. Janaagraha diagnoses governance at state and city level[3]. Universities produce ward studies for single cities[4], but as one-off research. I didn't find an Indian provider selling repeatable ward amenity-gap scores to CSR buyers, and that leaves room for a small, focused data studio.
| Difficulty | Moderate (33/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹35–70 L |
| Time to launch | 4–6 months |
The analysis is the easy part. Asset lists from corporations are often out of date, so you need field checks and they're expensive. Selling is harder still, because CSR teams buy once per project and repeat revenue depends on councils and on funders who work across several cities.
No special licence is needed for this. The baseline covers it.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't trust AI to decide which ward gets money. Scores need published methods and field checks, and the funding call stays with the council or CSR board.
Want to work out the AI layer for Fairgauge? Talk to Yash →
This suits a founder with GIS skills and contacts in the CSR world, run lean as a data studio first. It is not a venture-scale software business on day one, and I wouldn't pitch it as one. Prove first that two CSR teams will pay for one city report and change a site decision because of it.
My estimate is ₹35–70 L, mostly for GIS staff and field checks in the first city. The kit breaks it down.
No special licence. You'll need the usual registrations, and DPDP Act consent notices if you survey households.
Yes, the method works anywhere with ward or district data and open maps. Who pays changes though, so find your local version of a CSR budget first.
The free Fairgauge validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the data and publication checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for CSR heads and councillors, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Fairgauge or something close to it? The make-or-break work is turning a one-time report into something funders and councils renew, and I'm happy to work through that with you. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.