In December 2005, the Government of India launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). This aims to increase, in the next 7 years, central government investment on basic urban infrastructure and services in 63 identified cities up to US$11 billion. ADB committed to support the JNNURM with a US$2 million technical assistance grant for infrastructure and service interventions in water supply, waste management, public transportation, and more.
To gain more knowledge on potential beneficiaries of JNNURM, ADB and the Government agreed on a benchmarking program for 20 selected water utilities in India. The results were to be published as a water utilities data book similar to the SEAWUN Data Book of Southeast Asian Water Utilities (June 2005). The data book will contain profiles of each water utility, comparison of performance among the utilities, and a profile of the sector.
The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) was assigned to lead the benchmarking program and the data book preparations. To set the benchmarking program in motion, an inception workshop was held in Chennai, in January 2007 with 35 participants and observers from 18 water utilities and stakeholders attending. After the workshop, the MoUD expressed its strong commitment to the project and requested water utilities to cooperate with ADB to expedite the project's implementation. A project team finalized the questionnaire which was subsequently sent to the utilities through MoUD.
The initial findings of the MoUD benchmarking program were presented in this Results Workshop.
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This workshop aimed to
- Discuss the initial findings of the MoUD water utilities benchmarking program
- Present the outline of the upcoming data book on water utilities in India
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The workshop topics included:
- Project status and development
- Presentation of results – performance profiles and comparisons
- Exercise on performance rating
- Using indicators for performance improvement
- Process mapping and best practices
- Exercise on performance improvement planning
- Sharing of lessons learned – project team
- Sharing of lessons learned – participating utilities
- Institutionalizing benchmarking and performance improvement planning
- Improving data collection systems – availability and reliability
- Next steps to move forward towards attaining 24/7 services
The concluding sessions discussed how the benchmarking data will feed into the JNNURM program and support utilities to better access MoUD assistance.
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The workshop was organized by the MoUD, with support from ADB, and assistance from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras.
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Representatives from the MoUD, ADB, and water utilities from the selected JNNURM cities who have participated in the inception workshop attended.
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The workshop was held at the IC&SR Building, IIT Madras, Chennai, India.
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