A Comprehensive Sustainability Assessment Framework for Ex-Post Evaluation of Private Sector Participation in Municipal Solid Waste Management

Abstract

Within the gamut of the neo-liberal economic ideology, private sector participation in urban service delivery is visualised as the ultimate solution to efficient and sustainable provision of the same. While private sector participation is being pushed vigorously in municipal solid waste management in Indian cities, there is a critical gap of literature related to its performance from a holistic dimension of sustainability. A robust study can only be conducted if the sustainability assessment criteria and indicators are expansively framed to enable critical studies to take place. Based upon a detailed analysis of existing literature on private sector participation in both generic and specific contexts of municipal solid waste, this paper elaborates on a comprehensive sustainability assessment framework for ex-post evaluation of private sector participation in municipal solid waste (MSW) management in the context of Indian cities but which is also possible to replicate or remodel as per contextual requirement in other developing countries.