CII-IQ with the CII Kerala State Office organised the above programme at Thiruvananthapuram on 7-8 May.

The topics covered in the programme were Historical background and global initiatives in Public Service improvements (Genesis of IS 15700), Concepts of Quality in Services including 8 Quality Management Principles and Service Quality Gaps, Distinction between Commercial and Public Services, Benefits of IS 15700:2005 Quality Management System Standard, Quality Policy and Citizens Charter, Documentation of Service Quality Management System, Measurement Tools for customer satisfaction, Certification Procedures & requirements.

Over 30 Senior Officials from Government Departments and Public Service Organisations participated in the two day programme. The organizations represented in the programme include Kerala State Housing Board, Kerala Water Authority, Kerala State Road Transport Corporation, MILMA, Kerala State Financial Enterprises Ltd., KELTRON, KSDPL, KMML, KINFRA, KTDFC, KAMCO, KTDC, Thenmala Eco Tourism Promotion Society, NORKA-ROOTS etc. A participation certificate was also issued to the participants.

The faculty members were Mr Anupam Kaul Senior Counsellor and Mr Shiva Kumar, Counsellor from CII Institute of Quality.

While delivering the welcome address to the participants, Mr P Ganesh, Chairman, CII Thiruvananthapuram Zonal Council said that the Confederation of Indian Industry has been actively contributing in the development of these Standards and together with its two decades of experience in providing quality based solutions, presently holds the best understanding of the development of the public service improvement programme through the Quality Management route.

The SEVOTTAM scheme for Excellence in Public Services spear-headed by the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances has been launched to facilitate a wide scale improvement programme across Government Departments and public service agencies. The Scheme, based on robust and practicable principles of Quality Management, and backed by extensive research, has been captured as an Indian Standard (IS 15700:2005), the first such document in the world, with active contribution of a large array of government bodies, citizens groups, institutes of excellence, conformity assessment bodies and others. Improvements in Public Services now have a standard to benchmark itself. The implementation culminates into grant of SEVOTTAM certification by an Accredited certification body. Several prominent Departments of the Central Government are in various stages of implementation.

The CII Institute of Quality has a well defined training plan to address the various issues of Quality in Governance and readers are welcome to contact Mr Anupam Kaul at anupam.kaul@ciionline.org for further details.