PANI India

People's Action for National Integration

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PANI is a grassroots development organisation working with rural communities in Uttar Pradesh and three other states. Founded in 1986 in Ayodhya during a period of social unrest, it began as a community movement rooted in Gandhian values before being formally registered in 1989. Over 40 years, PANI has worked with over 2.5 million households and currently serves 6.1 lakh households across 43 districts of Uttar Pradesh, with additional presence in Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, and Rajasthan.

The organisation works with a particular focus on women, adolescent girls, farmers, and the most marginalised communities. Headquarters: Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh (State Office in Lucknow)

Sectors: Rural Development, Women Empowerment, Agriculture, Child Development, Health, Climate and Environment

Programmes PANI works across six broad thematic areas, all of which are treated as interconnected rather than separate programmes.

• Agriculture and Livelihoods

PANI supports smallholder farmers in water-scarce areas to adopt sustainable, water-efficient farming practices. The work includes training local community resource persons, running farmer support centres, and connecting farmers with government schemes and markets. The approach draws on traditional farming knowledge alongside newer adaptive practices.

• Child Development

PANI works on early childhood care and development, training caregivers and designing community spaces that support children's cognitive, emotional, and social growth.

• Gender and Governance

PANI runs long-term programmes with adolescent girls and women to build confidence, leadership, and decision-making skills. The work challenges social norms that limit women's roles in households and public life, with a focus on enabling women to participate meaningfully in local governance.

• Health, WASH and Nutrition

PANI works on community health, sanitation, and nutrition, particularly for women and children in rural areas.

• Natural Resource Management and Climate Change

Water conservation is at the centre of this work. PANI supports communities to revive traditional water management practices, restore watersheds, and build collective stewardship of natural resources including soil, forests, and biodiversity. Women are actively involved in leading water and conservation efforts at the village level.

• Integrated Community Development

Where the above areas overlap, PANI runs integrated programmes that work across themes simultaneously, recognising that issues like health, education, livelihoods, and governance rarely occur in isolation.

PANI has 380 full-time staff and 720 frontline workers. It has received recognition including the First Prize in the Water Initiative by NGOs category at the FICCI Water Awards 2024. PANI is a good fit for people with backgrounds in rural development, social work, agriculture, community health, gender, or natural resource management who want to work in field-level roles in Uttar Pradesh and surrounding states.