SLB to improve civic services in cities

AIILSG working with Jharkhand urban local bodies to achieve greater efficiency and better performance management

To develop standardized Service Level Benchmarks (SLBs) with respect to the basic services provided by the municipalities as defined by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India,Jharkhand has adopted the benchmarks as per the basic municipal services related to water supply, sewage, solid waste management and storm water drainage. These benchmarks help the local decision–makers to identify the gaps, plan and prioritise the improvement measures as per the targets set by the urban local bodies (ULBs), enhance service delivery and provide a platform to the external stakeholders to know about the service delivery levels. After adoption of this performance monitoring framework, the state government and ULBs are able to improve the quality of
decision making process in the identified sectors.
Considering these outcomes, the state has signed an MoU with CEPT University to enter the data in the PAS portal in order to have an updated database and thus to receive the 14th Finance Commission Performance Grant, as it is mandatory for the cities claiming the grantto notify the service level benchmarks. As SLBs are integral parts of city development planning processes both for assessment of the current situation and for setting targets under their plans, it is helpfulin planning city development as well. Through SLBs the ULBs are able to work on increasing the coverage and water supply connections. In addition the quality of the water supplied is getting examined and improved accordingly. The Non-Revenue Water (NRW) consists of water losses plus unbilled authorised consumption, which can also be examined and the state is accordingly working on it for reducing the NRW of the concerned cities. According to the standard benchmarks, the cities are working towards increased household coverage of Solid Waste Management services, increase in the efficiency of collection of municipal solid waste, segregation of solid wastes, and their scientific disposal. To be able to get the targeted output, the state has appointed AIILSG through open tender. AIILSG, Ranchi worked on this assignment in FY 2017-18 and FY 2018-19. The team worked for the collection of data, data compilation, assisted the ULBs in data entry in PAS Portal, validation of data entered in the portal and final gazette publication. The team followed up rigorously with the cities and completed the assignment as per timeline. All India Institute of Local Self-Government (AIILSG) has been organising workshops and training programmes on Service level Benchmarking (SLB) for ULB officials of Jharkhand to improve civic service delivery, water supply and sewage, waste management system, enhance administrative work and to achieve 14th FC Performance Grant.
The workshops were organised for ULBs’ officials to understand the standard benchmarks and train themin data collection and the methodology of data compilation. The team worked efficiently to come up with the targeted results and the Final Gazette Notification was published on time.
Activities conducted: Collection of information, uploading the data on the PAS portal, proper validation of data from concerned ULB, data correction and final gazette preparation. Jharkhand notified the SLB for the last 3 consecutive years and was qualified for the 14th FC Performance Grant for last 2 years and this year the State submitted the claim for the same.
Benefits to public/ULBs/State Government: Proper data maintenance which helps the ULBs/State Government and different stakeholders to access in one gothe data relating to the services provided by the State to its citizens. Service level benchmarking is also the performance management of the urban services which ULBs’provide to its citizens. This benefits the ULBs/State Government to periodically evaluate the SLBs as an input for its decisions, provide incentives and impose penalties, channelise technical and manpower support, and regulatory considerations among others. ULBs find it useful to institutionalise systems for performance management
using SLBs.
Improved accessto water supply: The State is able to assess the water supply coverage and connections in a better manner and is able to calculate the per capita supply of water. Also, the State can now find out the extent of non-revenue water.
Proposed outcomes: Increase in coverage of water supply and connections, improved quality of water supplied, efficiency in redressal of customer complaints, increase in per capita supply of water, reduction in NRW, proper data management and eligibility to get performance grants.