Satara District Council has an average budget of roughly US$30 million/1,410 million Indian rupees to provide health, nutrition, drinking water, sanitation, and education infrastructure services to its citizens. While social and economic indexes indicate that Satara is one of the better-developed districts in Maharashtra, it still falls short in attaining expected service delivery outcomes. Irregular health services and suboptimal health outcomes such as malnourishment, unsafe drinking water, and lack of sanitation remained major challenges in the district because of the absence of community participation in planning and poor accountability on the part of public functionaries. The overall objective of this accountability intervention was to improve development outcomes by strengthening the delivery of services by key government departments and programs. The micro-planning (MP) aspect of the process allowed communities to set collective priorities and decide on investments while the community scorecards (CSC) part allowed regular monitoring, feedback, and dialogue between service users and providers.
