he past couple of years have truly been years of excitement, action and achievement. Quality is no more a buzzword, more so in the service sector, which is fast assuming a dominating role in the national economy. Needless to say, quality is going to be the key factor in building competitiveness in this sector in the same manner — the way it did in the manufacturing sector. The telecommunication service is a ready example, which has witnessed widespread application of quality tools, as it opened up for fierce competition while being driven by market forces. The hospitality industry, to a lesser extent, has experienced the same. We, however, do not have very many examples from the rest of the large canvas of the service sector, most of which fall within the domain of public services.

The history of the quality movement in India can be traced back to the 60’s when the public sector led by the Department of Space, Atomic Energy and later followed by BHEL and SAIL initiated formal quality measures. The 1980s witnessed large-scale application of quality tools in the private manufacturing sector through various industry associations, viz, ASSOCHAM, CII and FICCI. The principles of Total Quality Management including quality tools like Six Sigma as applied over a span of 30 years in the manufacturing sector, need to be adapted and applied in the service sector. The Quality Council of India is working on a roadmap to facilitate some constituents of the service sector to achieve quality benchmarks in a fast forward mode.

It is very promising to know that the new government at the Centre has put forward the 100-days agenda with quantifiable goals. The Quality Council of India was invited by Mr Kapil Sibal, Hon. Union Minister for Human Resource Development, to showcase QCI’s accreditation model for schools and how it could benefit in raising the standard for quality education. It was a very heartening experience for me and my team, as for a good 45 minutes, the Hon Minister interacted and arrived at action points, as if we were with a corporate chairman. If this is going to be the trend in the working of the Government, we should be prepared for many a pleasant surprise in time to come.

During my recent visit to London, I had very good meeting with Mr. Roy Stephenson, in the cabinet office, Government of United Kingdom (UK). It was a good opportunity to understand the UK Government’s standard on ‘Customer Service Excellence’ in regard to the quality of public services. It says: "The Government wants public services for all that are efficient, effective, excellent, equitable and empowering — with the citizen always and everywhere at the heart of public service provision”. This programme operates under the aegis of the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) wherein once a department achieves compliance to the standard, it is issued with a commendation letter, signed by the Prime Minister. While the cabinet office administers the scheme, the compliance is assessed by four designated agencies duly accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation services (UKAS), which is a counterpart of the QCI in the UK. I was assured of full support and cooperation by cabinet office, in case we wished to launch a similar initiative in our own country. This is very much on the agenda of the QCI, as we are working on the criteria for monitoring/ measuring public services rendered to the citizen.

Cover Page | Q Notes | Contents & Letters | Protecting Indian Industry From Unfairr Barriers | Government thrust to qualityin education | A stirring call for change! | Lead leads in poisoning | Water is must for quality for life | A healthy nation in the making | Taking a ‘quality’ leap | Making blood safe through accreditation | Q-News | NABH Accreditation | DL Shah | MARK OF EXCELLENCE FOR SCHOOLS