Civic services to be benchmarked

BANGALORE: To monitor ward-level development, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will soon put in place a new system of benchmarking services. This will enable decision-makers to identify problems in the ward and take corrective measures.
Currently, service-level benchmarking is done for all urban local bodies (ULBs) under the aegis of the Directorate of Karnataka Municipal Administration."BBMP has asked us to design software for service-level benchmarking on the lines of the ULBs. We have started work on it and it'll be ready in two months," said Anjum Parwez, commissioner, municipal administration.
The current service-level benchmarking includes rating ULBs in terms of services provided and quality of service. Seven services are being audited — water supply management, waste water management, solid waste management, roads and roadside drains and streetlights, disease control, development of parks and gardens and municipal finance.
Parwez added that scores are given to ULBs on each of the above services and these are sent to decision-makers who will zero in on problem areas and fix them.
"BBMP asked us to design software for this and parameters used are similar to those of the ULBs. This is being developed under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM)," Parwez said.
He added that the ratings would make it easy to identify problem areas and the mayor or deputy mayor or corporators would work towards providing the services. "Karnataka is the first to develop this system. Even the government of India has taken this as a model," he said. As per the Karnataka Urban Service Level Benchmarking Report 2008-09, Hubli-Dharwad was ranked No. 1 with a total score of 272. While Hubli-Dharward scored highest in municipal finance with 65, Mysore scored highest in water supply management with 78.
Of the seven ULBs, Mysore ranked second, followed by Gulbarga, Mangalore, Bellary, Davanagere and Belgaum.