Evaluating the efficiency of water utilities of select cities in India using data envelopment analysis (DEA)
Student name: Ms Poonam Kunwar Banerjee
Guide: Dr Puneet Chitkara
Year of completion: 2008
Host Organisation: TERI University
Abstract: Provisioning of water supply in terms of quality and adequacy is of foremost concern among all other
urban infrastructure. Urban water supply in India is a challenging task with a large portion of the
urban population bereft of access to safe water supply. To tackle the existing situation requires
careful planning with strategic investments. While enormous investments are required in this sector,
there are major bottlenecks for efficient service delivery. The urban water supply consists of
predominantly public utilities, with limited private sector participation. The performance of the
service providers thus plays a pivotal role in the provisioning of water supply services. The poor
service delivery attributed to the water utilities becomes critical in view of the large investments
required for improving urban water supply. It is thus essential to ascertain the efficiency levels of
these water utilities and also to understand whether these utilities are improving or deteriorating over
time.
This research focuses on evaluating the efficiency of select water utilities in India over a period of
time. The efficiency is determined using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Method and the
productivity of these utilities over a time period is ascertained by calculating the using Malmquist
Index.
Key words: Productivity, water utilities, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Method, Malmquist
Index.
