Sevottam is an Indian standard for quality management in public service delivery. It aims to align service standards with citizen expectations through clear communication and consistent meeting of standards. Key components include citizen charters that declare service standards, grievance redress mechanisms, and ensuring capabilities for quality service delivery. The Sevottam framework provides criteria and processes for designing and implementing these components, conducting self-assessments, and certifying organizations that meet the quality standards. Successful implementation depends on high-level commitment, change management, stakeholder involvement, and linking Sevottam to other government reforms for improved governance.

1. SEVOTTAM
Nayana RenuKumar
CENTRE FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

2. Quality in service delivery
 What constitutes satisfactory or acceptable quality
of service delivery ?
 How to make quality uniform across places?
 Going the way?
Role of standards

3. Sevottam
 Seva + Uttam
 A mark of excellent quality of a public service
 Represents conformance to the BIS standard IS 15700:2005
 Inspired by UK Charter Mark, Malcolm Balridge and ISO series, tailor-
made for Indian government organizations
 Driven by Department of Administrative Reforms and Public
Grievances (DAR&PG)
 A Quality Management System
Laying down and clearly communicating service standards
&
Ensuring that these are constantly met

4. Background to Sevottam
Key components of service delivery
Standards + Grievance redress
CITIZEN’S CHARTER
Reality
 Written declaration by a public  Prepared without involvement of
service provider that highlights stakeholders
standards of service delivery  No relation with service delivery
 Empower citizens/clients to demand improvement
services as per committed standards
 Information about charter does not
percolate down the line, hence not
implemented
PUBLIC GRIEVANCE REDRESS
 Organizations needs to have  Not in place in many organizations
systems and processes to receive,  Grievances not taken as feedback for
record, investigate, analyze, improvement of services
 Employees not trained for improvement of
prevent and redress grievances
tasks assigned

5. BACKGROUND TO SEVOTTAM
Need for a standard to:
Align service delivery performance with citizen’s
expectations
 Establish a benchmark of quality of service delivery
 Provide incentives to public service organizations to
acquire and retain the mark
Enable continuous improvement, performance
assessment and grading of organizations

6. Sevottam components
Citizen’s Charter
 Design and implement a citizen’s charter, monitor its
implementation, and review it in the light of feedback
received from citizens and employees
Public Grievances
 Develop a mechanism of receiving, resolving and preventing
public grievances
Capability for Service Delivery
 Know customers’ and employees’ feedback
 Improve capabilities & resources to match them

8. Implementing Sevottam
Citizen’s Charter
Cover page - Uniform
Vision
Mission No. Main services Time lines Officer responsible for Contact details of
delivery of services the officer
Service Standards
 Names and contact details of Public Grievance Officer
 Helpline number/ website URL to lodge grievances
Grievance Redress Mechanism
 Responses to be expected
Stakeholders/ Clients  Time line for redress
Responsibility centres and subordinate organisations under the
department
Indicative expectations from service recipients
Month and year for next review of the charter

9. Charter design and implementation process
Collect
Receive inputs through
information on Collect information Plan for stakeholder
stakeholder consultations
services standards on service standards consultations on service
achieved/ can be achieved by standards of departments/ field  Administer survey tools
achieved by the responsibility centres units
as per survey plan
Department
 Analyse data collected
through survey tools
 Prepare list of
 Identify services  Identify stakeholder groups  Prioritize stakeholder
field units
delivered to be consulted expectations
 Prepare a list of
 Identify  Prepare plan to receive
services offered
indicators to stakeholder inputs Consolidate internal
by field units information and stakeholder
measure service  Design tool to collect data on
 Estimate current consultation results
standards citizen expectations
service standards
 Estimate current  Design tool for stakeholder  Compare existing
achieved by field
service consultations on service and service standards with
units
standards service standards stakeholder
 Document role expectations
 Document  Design tool for external
of department in
current service expert consultations on  Finalise standards of
service delivery
standards service and service standards service delivered by
by field units
Department

10. Charter design and implementation process
Initiate process for
Ensure
Prepare Charter Publish charter in Sevottam
implementation of
and get approval public domain compliance by
charter by staff
responsibility centres
 Prepare draft  Upload on  Send
citizen’s charter
department communication
 Circulate for website to all staff
 Provide inputs to
comments field units
 Provide printed  Conduct
 Finalise charter copies to various training/orientati
 Agree roadmap
stakeholders on session for with field units
 Make bilingual
versions  Disseminate staff on charter
charter contents
through help
desks etc
Charters
Ministry of Drinking water supply

11. Grievance Redress Mechanism
 Information on receipt
No. Date of Name Address Landline Whether Subject of Office Brief Date of Date of
receipt /Mobile / acknowledgeme grievance Description acknowle redress
email nt given at the dgement
time of receipt
 Communication to complainant
At the time of During redress, if not At the time of final
complaint redressed in time redress
 Grievance number to
facilitate monitoring and
reminders
 Information on reasons for  Actions taken for redress
delay  If not satisfied with redress,
 Expected time of redress
 Updated expected time of avenues for pursuing the
 If not addressed in time,
redress matter further
action to be taken by
complainant

12. Grievance Redress Mechanism
 Criteria for classification
 Time norms for redress
 Level of responsibility for redress
Criteria Grievance Timeline for Timeline for Timeline for Timeline
category redress at redress at redress at for redress
level 1 level 2 level 3 at level 4
Charter related
Policy related
Personnel related
Pensioners’ related
Vigilance related
 Analysis and Prevention
Date and Grievance Systemic causes Action Planned date and Action
description of prone areas identified required to authority taken date
grievance identified improve responsible for
system taking action

13. GRM design and implementation process
Design of GRM
 Prepare list of data
item to be captured in
the GRM
Implementation of
 Prepare the internal GRM
process flow chart for  Implement the process flow
Grievance Prevention
GRM through existing systems
 Training/workshop on GRM  Conduct systemic
analysis
 Initiate process for
automation related decision  Identify grievance
prone areas ad
 Launch the GRM
remedial actions
 Publicize the GRM
 Take follow up action
 Periodic review of GRM
to address grievance
prone areas

14. Service Delivery Capability
 Understanding customer expectations
 Motivation and training of employees
 Availability of adequate hard and soft infrastructure
for service delivery

15. Process Stakeholder feedback on
Baseline/As-is study Gap analysis
mapping service standards
 List the documents containing
information necessary for managing  List issues to address  Identify service
 Break up the
service quality service while settings standards recipient groups who
 List activities need to monitor delivery work need to be better
 List the systems needed
achievement of standards contained flow into informed
distinct steps for smooth delivery of
in charter
routine services  Develop method to
 List activities needed to progressively  Gather
collect data on
improve service standards information  List the systems need
needed to information needs of
 List periodic checks needed toe for continuous
improve and service recipients
ensure effectiveness of improvement for
standardise Collect and analyse data
communications service delivery 
each step
 List areas where use of technology is  Aggregate the
known to improve service delivery Root cause analysis Resource Base Assessment
time needed
 List prizes /awards for motivating staff for
to provide better services completion  Identify HR
 Identify the cases where
 List activities which are commonly and transition requirements
for each service was not delivered
used to receive service recipient  Identify finance
service as per standards
 List areas where periodic review is requirements
required to keep up with changing  Identify  Categorise the cases
environment improvement according to the reason
 Identify infrastructure
opportunities requirements
 List service delivery improvement for nota achieving
areas for regular review by top standards  Office management
management systems assessment

16. Integrated model for assessing service delivery
Module (3) Criteria (3)
Citizen Charter 1.1 Implementation
1.2 Monitoring
1.3 Review
Public Grievance Redress 2.1 Receipt
2.2 Redress
2.3 Prevention
Service Delivery Capability 3.1 Customers
3.2 Employers
3.3 Infrastructure

17. Institutional arrangements
 Steering group at apex level
 Working Group at Apex level
 Multiple implementation committees

18. Intended outcomes of Sevottam implementation
IMPROVEMENT IN QUALITY OF PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY
Citizen empowerment Redress satisfaction Capacity enhancement
Citizen’s Charter Public Grievance
Public Grievance Service Delivery
Service Delivery
Citizen’s Charter
Redress
Redress Capacity
Capacity
INTEGRATED APPROACH
INTEGRATED APPROACH

19. Sevottam assessment framework
First level assessment
A screening mechanism to filter out organizations that do not
even enter assessment process
Has the department published and approved a Citizen Charter?
Has the department circulated Charter among service delivery units?
Has the department appointed a senior officer as Director of Public
Grievances /nodal officer for citizen charter ?
Has the departments et up a task force for formulation, implementation and
review of citizen's charter as per standards and for conducting self assessment
with the involvement of representative citizen groups?
Has the department ppublished grievance redress procedure and timelines ?

20. Sevottam assessment framework-II
Process Quality Assessment
A rating mechanism to assess the quality of related processes and
its impact in improved service delivery from citizens’ perspective
Module/Criteria/Element Systematic Adhoc
5 4 3 2 1
1 Citizen’s Charter
1.1 Charter implementation
1.1.1 How do you determine the citizen groups and
what services do you offer them?
1.1.2 How do you meet the service expectation of
your citizen’s group?
1.1.3 How do you ensure that frontline staff and
citizen groups are aware of the charter

21. SEVOTTAM SUCCESS
Success of SEVOTTAM depends on…
High level Change
commitment Management
Management
Mindset
Political Administrative systems
Implementation Stakeholder
of framework involvement
Assessment Government
Criteria Citizens
process staff

22. Sevottam
 Link with Results Framework Document
 Link with Right to Services Act
 Link with single window portals
 Link with open government

23. Thank You