4.1. What is Sevottam Model?

The Sevottam model has been developed with the overarching objective of improving the quality of public service delivery in the country. It is a combination of two words Seva (service), Uttam (excellence).

It provides a framework for organizations to asses and improve the quality of service delivery to citizens. The model was suggested by 2nd ARC in its 12th report Citizen centric administration.

The model has three modules:

1. Citizen Charter

2. Public Grievance Redress mechanism

3. Service Delivery Capability The model prescribes seven steps:

1. Define services and identify clients.

2. Set standards and norms for each service.

3. Develop capability to meet the set standards.

4. Perform to achieve the standards.

5. Monitor performance against the set standards.

6. Evaluate impact through an independent mechanism.

7. Continuous improvement based on monitoring and evaluation.

Organizations adopting Sevottam model for service delivery need to comply with seven steps and ensure formulation of three modules.

Implementation of Sevottam framework in the government departments was started in 2009. Later, Sevottam has been launched as a certification scheme which provides for the award of the Sevottam symbol of excellence to public service organizations that implement and are able to show compliance to a set of management system requirements that have been specified in a specially created standard document. This standard, known as IS 15700:2005, was developed by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) based on the objectives of Sevottam.