An effective policy response to the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic requires an enormous range of data to inform the design and response of programs. Public health measures require data on the spread of the disease, beliefs in the population, and capacity of the health system. Relief efforts depend on an understanding of hardships being faced by various segments of the population. Food policy requires measurement of agricultural production and hunger. In such a rapidly evolving pandemic, these data must be collected at a high frequency. Given the unexpected nature of the shock and urgency with which a response was required, Indian policymakers needed to formulate policies affecting India’s 1.4 billion people, without the detailed evidence required to construct effective programs. To help overcome this evidence gap, the World Bank, IDinsight, and the Development Data Lab sought to produce rigorous and responsive data for policymakers across six states in India: Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh.