PRS Legislative Research (PRS) is an Indian non-profit organisation and an independent research institute established in September 2005. It was co-founded by C.V. Madhukar and M.R. Madhavan. The initiative was initially incubated in the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) in New Delhi. PRS was created to address the problem that Members of Parliament (MPs) often lack dedicated research staff or institutional support to analyze the complex and diverse issues involved in lawmaking. Its core mission is to make the Indian legislative process better informed, more transparent, and participatory.
PRS works by providing non-partisan research support to both Members of Parliament (MPs) and Members of Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) across all political parties. Its mechanism involves tracking the functioning of the Indian Parliament and state legislatures, and providing a comprehensive resource base for legislative and policy issues. Key outputs include Legislative Briefs, which are concise summaries of Bills introduced in Parliament, and the Monthly Policy Review, a report on major policy developments. PRS also tracks the activity of MPs through an online tool, detailing their attendance, questions asked, and participation in debates. A related concept is the LAMP (Legislative Assistants to Members of Parliament) Fellowship, which PRS created to provide young citizens with the opportunity to work with an MP for a year. PRS has recently highlighted issues like the legislative rush in state assemblies, noting that over 600 state bills were passed in 2025, with nearly a third introduced and enacted on the same day, raising concerns about limited scrutiny. The organisation itself was recently institutionalised as the Institute for Policy Research Studies, a not-for-profit Section 8 company (formerly Section 25).