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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evolve a framework for assessing the efficiencies of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) services.Design/methodology/approachStochastic frontier analysis (SFA), a deterministic parametric frontier technique, has been employed for benchmarking of the MSWM services across municipalities in 22 cities in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India.FindingsThis paper reviews the solid waste management status and applies SFA to evaluate the relative performances of the services in terms of seven models, of which two models were found significant and acceptable based on the null hypothesis, significance of elasticity of variables, and an absence of data heteroskedasticity. The paper discusses the results in the context of various indicators, and finds that a large number of MSWM municipalities exhibit relative inefficiencies, implying that most municipalities can achieve higher levels of outputs by deploying fewer resources, thereby improving performances without necessarily increasing municipal spendings.Social implicationsThe work suggests some of the changes at the policy level that would affect the way in which solid waste is managed currently in India, and hence the work has social implications whereby the lives of a billion people will be improved through improved solid waste management services.Originality/valueTo the best of the author's information, advanced benchmarking techniques such as SFA have seldom been applied for evolving the efficiencies of solid waste management municipalities, primarily because the sanitation services are yet to take the shape of an industry in the developing world. Lack of availability of data and non‐transparent functions of these services prevent further exploration into estimating the inefficiencies of these service utilities. The paper will be of use to policy makers, solid waste managers, administrators, and sector regulators.

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