Quality Evidence Archives - understand-culture

Service Excellence

Sevottam means service excellence. It is the name of a framework of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances for public service delivery. Its three modules are the Citizen’s Charter, grievance redress and capability building.

Its requirements are set out in a standard of the Bureau of Indian Standards, IS 15700:2005, on service quality by public service organizations. A certificate is valid for three years. By March 2013, according to a Lok Sabha document, 72 central ministries and departments had “uploaded their sevottam compliant Citizen Charters on their websites.”

An A++ Grade

On February 1, 2025, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested ten people, among them seven members of an inspection team of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council. NAAC grades India’s colleges and universities. The CBI alleged that the team was paid to give an A++ grade to the Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation in Andhra Pradesh. Searches found “Rs 37 lakh in cash.”

NAAC barred the university from accreditation for five years and banned the seven members permanently. It also announced a move toward a pass or fail system.

Certified, Not Placed

Under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, the government’s flagship skills scheme, 1.10 crore people were certified from 2015 to 2022. In December 2025 the Comptroller and Auditor General reported on the scheme. Of 56 lakh candidates certified in short-term training and special projects, about 41 percent were placed in jobs.

The audit found “repeated photographic evidence across states.” The same photo served as proof for a batch in Gaya, Bihar, and for another in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh. In two phases of the scheme, the bank account fields were blank or null for 94.53 percent of participants.

Er.

On September 15, 2026, the Karnataka government issued an order allowing engineers to use the prefix “Er.” before their names. It came with a decision to make Engineers’ Day, September 15, an official state event from 2027. The day marks the birthday of the engineer M. Visvesvaraya.

The prefix followed a similar one for teachers, “Tr.”

Level 5

The Capability Maturity Model of Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute rates how mature a company’s software processes are. Level 5 is the highest. In January 2003, Business Today counted 78 companies in the world assessed at Level 5. Fifty-four of them were Indian companies or the Indian operations of multinationals.

In December 2001, CIOL reported that Wipro Technologies was the first company in the world to reach Level 5 of the People CMM, a version of the model for managing people.

Not Six Sigma

The dabbawalas of Mumbai carry lunch boxes from homes to offices. They are often said to hold a Six Sigma rating. The claim goes back to a Forbes article of 1998. Ragunath Medge, the head of their association, told Forbes they made a mistake “almost never, maybe once every two months.” The reporter turned this into one mistake in 8 million deliveries.

The author, Subrata Chakravarty, later said: “Forbes never certified the dabbawalas as being a six-sigma organization.” He added: “six-sigma is a process, not a statistic.”

In 2010, Harvard Business School added a case study on them, The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time.

The Golden Peacock

In September 2008, Satyam Computer Services won a Golden Peacock award for corporate governance, in the category of risk management and compliance. It had won a Golden Peacock governance award before, in 2002.

On January 7, 2009, its chairman, Ramalinga Raju, admitted in a letter to the board that the accounts showed “inflated (non-existent) cash and bank balances” of 50.40 billion rupees. The award was withdrawn.

After the Name

The Indian Medical Council regulations of 2002 on professional conduct set out what a doctor may write after his name. Physicians may display “only recognized medical degrees or such certificates/diplomas,” and “memberships/honours which confer professional knowledge or recognizes any exemplary qualification/achievements.”

Attested by a Gazetted Officer

Indians applying to government offices often needed copies of their mark sheets, birth certificates and other papers attested by a gazetted officer, a senior government official. An affidavit was the alternative.

In July 2014 the central government asked states and union territories to accept self-attested copies instead where possible. The change was to come in phases. Attestation stayed where a law requires it.