Performance Assessment and Developing a Water Tariff Framework for an Urban Local Body

Abstract

Abstract newlineThe basic element of human life, economy and political strength of any country is the availability of the water. Water is an integral part of our constitution since its inception. But, the availability and water use scenario has changed in the past seven decades. As a result, the constitutional and other legal framework dealing with the way this precious resource is being managed needs a closer examination, especially under the realm of population explosion, urbanization, climate change effects and restricted capabilities of authorities facilitating water-related services. newlineThe increasing urbanization has brought with it the question of sustainability which would become more and more essential in influencing the quality of life of urban residents, and the economic productivity of its built and natural environment. The cities are under a constant pressure to cater good services to its residents. newlinePerformance Assessment Systems (PAS) and benchmarking are potent man-agement tools for evaluating and improving performance as has been demonstrated throughout their systematic use in numerous industries for decades. However, their application to the water sector particularly in developing countries is still limited. The lack of performance appraisal of services provided by municipal authorities / Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) of Gujarat is not only giving birth to increasing dissat-isfaction among its users but also doing no good in improving the equitable and efficient distribution of this resource by the respective municipal authorities. newlineThe existing performance benchmarking systems employs way too many per-formance indicators (PIs) that are either difficult to measure or the respective mu-nicipal authorities do not have sufficient funds and staff to administer the regular assessment of these PIs. Moreover, benchmarks are somewhat constrained as they work with particular measurement one at a time, it is not easy to evaluate an organ-ization s performance when there are multiple performance matrices associated with i