This initiative covers Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation's (NMMC) institutional reforms, e-Governance, redressal mechanism and increased transparency and well-defined communication strategy and increase in revenue.




NMMC, constituted in 1992 near Mumbai, has a population of 1.2 million covering an area of 108.06 sq km. Navi Mumbai, which is one of the well planned cities of the country, has a well developed physical and social infrastructure and is also a centre for quality education. The city is divided into 89 electoral wards with an elected councilor each. There are 8 ward offices covering 10 electoral wards each. However, deficiencies in service delivery particularly in water supply system, necessitated interventions in improving and streamlining water supply management to improve service delivery.

Getting new water connections, payment of water bills and complaint registration and redressal in water supply management are three inter-related problems faced by NMMC. All the above activities proved onerous and above all the manual water bill payment system was centralized and collection centers were located only at the ward offices. This led to long queues and prolonged bill payment time. Weak institutional arrangements and lack of co-ordination between head office and the ward offices made the consumers visit different offices. Issues also included lack of communication strategy, inconsistent database application methods across departments under e-Governance, disintegration across accounts departments and absence of transparency in imparting information.

Urban poor living in slums and surrounding villages did not have individual water connections, due to higher costs and complicated procedures leading to irregular and inadequate water supply.
Governance reforms led by strong institutional arrangements, formulation of an effective communication strategy, simplification of procedures through e-Governance, e-Management of water supply system and institutional reforms streamlining water connection process, bill payment, a robust complaints registration and redressal mechanism were spearheaded by NMMC.
Ward offices were reorganized and strengthened. Decision-making and managerial activities relating to water supply connections, shifting connections, transfer of names, bill payments, complaint redressal, etc., were delegated and decentralized to ward level officials. Poor households were provided group connections with total coverage, removal of all Public Stand Posts (PSPs) and avoidance of tanker supply. Citizen Facilitation Centres (CFCs) in each ward office with facility to apply for water connection, lodge complaints and grievances and to make payment of water and other bills were established. CFCs also provided other services like issue of birth and death certificate, etc. The Corporation also introduced simplified water bill payment system with the support of 15 bank counters, 10 0 e-Kiosks, drop box system and online payment system.

A complaint registration facility at head office, ward offices, through website, personal contact, mail and telephone was initiated. Complaint redressal process was simplified and made transparent through registration and recording of process in triplicate; one copy handed over to the complainant. NMMC also organized Lok Shahi Din to receive and redress grievances.

Communication strategy unveiled and disseminated through personal contact by cutting edge staff, while new institutional arrangements, procedures and processes were published on pamphlets. Announcements were made public through print and electronic media. Street plays, Jal Kirthans, and seminars were organized to bring public awareness on the initiative. Website was launched to disseminate information on water supply service standards, supply hours, water connection and disconnection procedures, documents required, fees and charges to be paid, tariff structure, contact addresses of officials in case of need, etc., apart from general management, financial and development information was hosted. Apart from this, support charges, details on the status of water bill, details of Operation and Maintenance (O&M) contractors, and tenders were also uploaded for public scrutiny. e-Governance system was upgraded with common database and J2EE technology integrated with all departments. Additionally, data collected through GIS survey on water supply network, ESR/GSR's, pump houses, etc., was used to map places of water works leading to further budgetary controls.
At present, the water connections are provided in 3 days (instead of 7 days as was the case earlier). NMMC proposes to further reduce it to one day or same day. The initiative resulted in substantial reduction in number of complaints from 4,260 in 2004-05 to 1,183 in 2009-10 (Table I) led by speedy redressal indicating increased quality of services and, thereby, higher consumer satisfaction. Moreover, efficiency in complaint redressal is 97.95% as against the service level benchmarks which is 80%.

Table 1: No. of Complaints Received

#	Zones	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
1.	Belapur	620	580	350	185	153	98
2.	Nerul	780	445	418	245	218	176
3.	Turbhe	445	394	287	153	129	97
4.	Vashi	502	450	212	176	165	142
5.	K.K	410	387	321	270	260	186
6.	Ghansoli	370	350	339	201	170	107
7.	Airoli	548	407	358	287	262	176
8.	Digha	585	510	425	360	257	201
Total		4,260	3,523	2,710	1,877	1,614	1,183

Better monitoring and control resulted in significant saving in cost and time of citizens and streamlining water bill payment system increased revenues including O&M cost recovery (Table 2).

Table 2: Cost Recovery

S. No.	Year	Water bill recovery & Connection Charges Rs. in Crore	O&M cost Rs. in Crore	%
1.	2006-07	44.14	65.57	67
2.	2007-08	52.78	69.44	76
3.	2008-09	54.89	61.58	89
4.	2009-10	54.68	58.23	94
5.	2010-11	56.60	55.00	97

NMMC also established an environmental laboratory for daily water quality testing in which it was found that potable water quality improved to 99%. e-Tendering and public announcements on website established transparency and better governance which resulted in cost reduction by 10-12%. Furthermore, automatic meter reading system enabled accuracy in bill generation contributing to a cost saving of 10-15%. Overall cost recovery evident with the application of NMMC's e-Governance system, which is largely replicable and sustainable with the system being outsourced to private entities.
For further details, contact:

Municipal Commissioner
Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation
Belapur Bhavan, 1st Floor
CBD Belapur
Navi Mumbai - 400 614
Maharashtra
Ph: 022 - 27575700, 27571095
Fax: 022 - 27573785