Urban areas throughout the country are striving to improve service delivery, which is key for the success of various initiatives launched by Government of India (GoI), such as JnNURM, UIDSSMT etc. and also crucial to furthering India’s progress in achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). However, linked to these initiatives are investments and the experience has shown that more investments in urban infrastructure have not always resulted in corresponding improvements in levels of service delivery. There is, therefore, an urgent need for a shift in focus towards service delivery.

In this context, Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), released the Handbook for Service Level Benchmarks, which it hopes will facilitate a shift in focus of Urban Local Bodies (ULB’s) and Urban Utilities agencies from infrastructure creation to delivery of service outcomes.

Finally, as a part of this framework, 31 service level performance indicators were identified covering four basic urban services, viz.,      

Water Supply

Sewerage

Solid waste Management

Storm Water Drainage

Administrative Staff College of India, as a part of this initiative, is supporting eight cities under technical co-operation from Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) viz. Amritsar, Bangalore, Calicut, Delhi, Guntur, Hyderabad, Jalandhar and Trivandrum in opertationalizing the Service Level Benchmarks (SLB).

Japan International

 Co-operation Agency

      Administrative Staff College of India

             Centre for Environmental             Planning and Technology