How to read the Policy Tracker
Published 6 November 2026
The policies tracker follows 24 national schemes. Each entry has what the government promised, with dates, and what has happened since. Here is how to read it: what the status pills mean, why we say “In progress” instead of “missed”, and where every number comes from.
Promised and Progress
Every policy entry is built the same way, so you can compare one with another.
The Promised block states the exact commitment: what the government said it would do, the target it set, and the date it set for it. Where a policy has more than one commitment, each is listed. The wording stays close to the government’s own announcement, and the date is the date the commitment was made or the target was set for.
The Progress block states what verified records show today. It uses the most recent official figure available, with the date of the source. Where the record is incomplete, or where the only available figure comes from secondary reporting, the entry says so.
The two blocks are kept separate on purpose. The gap between them is the story, and we would rather you see it for yourself than have us describe it for you. Read the promise, read the progress, and judge the distance between them.
The status pills
Each policy carries a status pill. The pill describes where a policy stands, not whether it is good or bad. There are seven of them.
On track, carried by 11 policies, means the work is progressing as planned against the target and the timeline. Delivered, carried by 2 policies (Jan Dhan and Ujjwala), means the commitment is met. In progress (Extended), carried by 5 policies, means the work continues past the original timeline. In progress, carried by 2 policies, means the work is underway and no extension has been flagged. Early stage, carried by 2 policies (the Semiconductor Mission and the IndiaAI Mission), means the policy is too new to judge. Long-term, carried by 1 policy (Viksit Bharat 2047), means the goal runs over decades and cannot be judged on a short timeline. Ongoing, carried by 1 policy (Atmanirbhar Bharat), means it is a standing mission rather than a scheme with a finish line.
The count will change as policies move. A policy that is Early stage today may be On track in a year. A policy that is In progress (Extended) may be Delivered. The pill is a snapshot, and the Progress block is where you check the detail behind it.
Why “In progress”, not “missed”
You will not find the words “missed”, “delayed”, or “at risk” anywhere on the tracker. That is a deliberate choice, and it is worth explaining.
The government sets ambitious targets for ambitious policies. A target to bring logistics cost to 8 percent of GDP, or to build a semiconductor ecosystem from scratch, or to give every household tap water, is not a quarterly sales goal. It is a statement of intent on a national scale, and it is meant to be hard.
Judging such a target the way a company judges a quarterly forecast would be the wrong frame. A company that misses a quarter has failed. A government that extends a timeline on a twenty-year infrastructure programme has not necessarily failed; it may simply be doing something harder than the original schedule allowed for. So we do not hand out verdicts. We say “In progress”, we give the facts, and we let you judge.
That is not a softening of the record. Where work is behind the target, the Progress block says so, with the numbers. Where a number is disputed, the entry says so, with the dispute. The tracker is not here to praise or to condemn. It is here to make the record visible, so the judgement is yours.
Where the numbers come from
Every figure on the tracker traces back to a source, and the sources are ranked.
Tier 0 is the source of truth: government releases, including Press Information Bureau releases, Parliament answers, and ministry pages. Only Tier 0 carries a figure as fact. Tier 1 is authoritative and independent: the World Bank, the IMF, the OECD, the Asian Development Bank, and research institutes’ own studies, including NCAER and ICRIER. Tier 1 can carry a figure with attribution. Tier 2 is established journalism: national papers of record and wire services with named authors and corrections. Tier 2 can report a figure and a dispute, with attribution.
Tier 3 (industry bodies, trade press, consultancies, think tanks) is used for background only and is never the sole basis for a number. Tier 4 (exam-prep sites, blogs, aggregators, content farms) is never cited at all.
Every policy entry links its sources underneath it, and the full list is collected on the Sources page. When a ministry has not published a recent release for a figure, the entry says so in plain words and names the source and date. When a figure comes only from secondary reporting, the link shows it, and it is never presented as government data.
That is the whole method. A promise, a record, a status, and a source. If any of those four is missing from an entry, tell us on the contact page, and we will fix it.
Sources
- modi.im, Policies tracker (November 2026). The 24 policy entries, their status pills, and their Promised and Progress blocks.
- modi.im, Sources page (November 2026). The full source list for the tracker, ranked by tier, and the definitions of Tier 0 through Tier 4.
- modi.im, “496 million or 25 crore? Making sense of India’s poverty numbers” (November 2026). The World Bank and NITI Aayog poverty figures cited in the tracker’s stance.
These sources are also listed on the Sources page.
Updated 9 November 2026