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Performance assessment of Indian cities in municipal used water management:
An Indicator-Based Framework
Saiba Gupta, Kartikey Chaturvedi, Ayushi Kashyap and Nitin Bassi
August 2025 | Circular Economy, Sustainable Water
Overview
Climate change is adversely impacting water resources, often accentuating the water stress in countries with competing water demand from various sectors. Reusing treated domestic used water for non- potable purposes offers potential to reduce the pressure on freshwater resources and build community resilience to the changing climate. This article presents an indicator-based framework for assessing the performance of Indian urban local bodies (ULBs) in managing their municipal used water. The framework is built using 25 parameters across five key themes that include finance, infrastructure, efficiency, data and information and governance. A case study on the application of the developed framework to the City of Thane in western India is discussed as a test case. The framework has the potential to guide ULBs in formulating strategies to strengthen used water treatment and reuse, thus integrating a circular economy approach to urban water management.
Key Highlights
- The Municipal Used Water Management (MUWM) index framework is a targeted tool that integrates financial sustainability, operational efficiency, governance, and access to data and information into used water management performance assessment. It aims to guide ULBs in identifying the areas that require improvement and, hence, investing in improved used water management.
- The framework provides a composite index score from 0 to 5, which is used to classify ULBs into five award categories: Outstanding, Leading, Performing, Promising, and Aspiring. Such a classification can promote competition and cross-learning among cities.
- The framework was tested on the city of Thane, Maharashtra, which received a composite index score of 2.83 out of 5, placing it in the 'Leading' category. Thane's performance was strong in finance and infrastructure but weak in the data and information theme. The Thane Municipal Corporation has recently launched a pioneering treated used water reuse plan, utilising the MUWM index framework to evaluate the city's used water management systems.
- The assessment framework developed can serve as a template for maintaining and updating municipal data on used water management for Indian cities. The index can hence be developed annually, based on a dynamic data inventory regularly updated with ULBs’ support.
"ULBs are the primary authorities responsible for developing and maintaining water infrastructure and service delivery in Indian cities. The Municipal Used Water Management index aims to guide ULBs in formulating and adopting long-term reuse plans that integrate circularity in used water management. "
