PAHELI seeks to apply the ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) model to other social sectors in order to understand the status of key human development indicators. For basic parameters in education, ASER focuses on whether a child is in school and learning. For other sectors too, the challenge was to identify a key outcome and to develop simple tools, measures and methods to understand the status of that outcome in a given area (whether it be a neighbourhood, hamlet, village, block or district). PAHELI 2011 is a product of these efforts. The PAHELI framework is built around four key human development domains: Life & Livelihoods, Water & Sanitation, Education & Literacy, Mother and Infant Health & Care. Based on the Millenium Development Goals and on national priorities, PAHELI is a household survey which looks at the provision of basic services at the village level through key central government social schemes and the links of these services to households. The schemes covered in PAHELI are Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, ICDS, public health services, PDS and MGNREGS.

The PAHELI 2011 initiative was supported by the UN-Planning Commission Convergence Programme. In addition, two other partners provided technical know-how and resources: Arghyam in water and sanitation and Accountability Initiative for fund tracking at the local level. A set of local partners comprising organisations based in the area carried out the exercise at the local level. Government departments in each state supported the effort during training, implementation and dissemination.