Monitoring sanitation has generally focused on basic access with its implicit links to health impacts. The new thinking on urban sanitation monitoring goes beyond the household level facilities to encompass wider dimensions of equity, public health and natural environment. This requires an assessment of the full value chain from the user interface to storage, conveyance, treatment and disposal or reuse. In developing country context, this also necessitates incorporating other sanitation dimensions beyond excreta management, especially management of greywater, storm water and solid waste as these are often interlinked on the ground. In this context, it is important to revisit the concept of the sanitation ladder, widely used by the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), which has focused on household access. This paper suggests a framework for outcome-based citywide assessment of the full sanitation value chain across different sanitation sub-sectors. The ladder is redefined using a city sanitation score to assess city level performance. The suggested outcome- based assessment for different components of the value chain also provides a basis for city level monitoring of overall sanitation performance.

Over half the world's population resides in urban areas. Over the next two decades, the bulk of urban growth will occur in developing countries. This paper argues that in the context of urban areas, we need to focus specifically on the slums as this group is discriminated against in provision of water and sanitation.

Gujarat has made important strides to ensure that most parts of the state become water secure. In 2005, Gujarat was one of the few states that recognized that its urban areas were its ‘engines of growth’ and made significant investments in urban infrastructure. A state- wide water supply grid was constructed to transfer inter-basin water from perennial surface water sources to water-scarce areas. While these schemes have improved household-level access to municipal water supply, service levels have not improved. In this paper, we argue that along with infrastructure creation, there is a need to focus on monitoring, operation and maintenance of existing system and improving efficiency. We analyze information available from the performance assessment system (PAS) setup by the CEPT University for monitoring of urban services in India. It has annual information of water service delivery in all the urban areas of Gujarat from 2010. We assess urban drinking water supply on three key aspects: equity, service quality and financial sustainability. We also identify a few key intervention areas related to increased accountability, efficiency and equity in delivery of water supply services.

This report provides an assessment of the financing arrangements of the urban water supply and sanitation sector in Gujarat. It provides an assessment of the extent and flow of allocations for urban water and sanitation and sector monitoring framework. Gujarat has demonstrated its commitment to urban water and sanitation by making significant increase in budgetary allocations. However, this study raises concerns regarding financial sustainability that needs to be addressed through improved cost recovery, capacity building of local governments and regular monitoring of sector performance.

Benchmarking of water and sanitation services in emerging countries pose serious challenges. This is because the conventional approach used in more developed countries does not work when water supply is intermittent, often unmetered and a large number of consumers who are poor depend on shared connections. For sanitation, cities often do not have sewerage infrastructure and population also lacks access to basic sanitary facilities for capture and storage.

These issues are being addressed under the PAS (Performance Assessment System) Project, at the CEPT University in India. The Project has three main components: Performance Measurement, Performance Monitoring and Performance Improvement. It envisages setting up a system that will be adopted over time by the local and state governments. It is already aligned with the performance benchmarking system being envisaged by the Government of India for services related to four sub‐sectors: urban water supply, waste water and sanitation, solid waste management and storm water drainage. This has increased the possibilities of sustaining the performance assessment system being developed under the PAS Project.

In India, urban water and sanitation services are provided by state government departments or municipal governments. Unlike the water utilities in other Asian countries, where accountability is measured through performance indicators, in India little attention is paid to performance measurements. Of the three forms of accountability – upward, downward and internal – a major focus in India is on upward accountability. However, this is limited to financial accountability and not performance monitoring. For downward accountability, efforts are underway through E-governance, but need further strengthening. The internal accountability processes are weak and need to be enhanced using performance targets at ULG level and its decentralized units. However, for these to work effectively, operational autonomy for water departments or ‘ring-fencing’ their operation from other municipal activities is needed.