The RTE Act came into force on April 1, 2010. What does guaranteeing “education” mean in the context of a low-income urban area? The objective of this exercise was to understand the requirements to translate RTE into a reality in a set of urban locations. In each participating city, one municipal ward – typically a mixed or low income area – was selected as the sample location. In 2014, five cities participated in the Urban Ward Survey. These cities were Delhi, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Mysore and Patna. In each of these cities, one municipal ward, typically a mixed or low-income area, was chosen to be a ‘pilot’ location and a census was carried out.