In Pakistan, a developing country and eternally embroiled in political, social and economic issues, governance had always held a question mark against its quality. Be it politicians, army rule or bureaucracy there have always been systematic problem of service delivery ‘ poor quality, low performance, limited responsiveness and weak accountability. The problem of service delivery does not result from financial resource constraints and locative inefficiencies, but also from bureaucratic and organizational context. In the context of education for all and health, if the Millennium Development Goals are to be achieved, the problems in the service delivery are to be identified and addressed but sustained overtime to reap the dividend. However within this story of disappointments, there are two projects launched by the present Government, one in its previous tenure 15 years back, and the other one more recently, which can be taken as islands of excellence and quoted as success stories. These two projects were the Motorway M-II between Lahore and Islamabad and the Metro Bus Project in Lahore more recently. Thus I would be justified in saying that if one embarks on a journey of finding public value in any government sector services delivery, the most likely destination where this concept can possibly be studied is within these two projects. This study therefore, aims at identifying if any public value has been created through these projects, and if yes, can this value be sustained for a longer period of time or not. Furthermore, this study would also help in finding the answer to one very basic question, that can public value (a concept conceived in modern western societies) can at all be found in developing nations like Pakistan that are already riddled with so many problems.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Public Value. Where has it come from?

At the end of the 19th century Woodrow Wilson set out what was to become the orthodox model for public administration in the 20th century, where administration was separated from politics and the job of the administrators was primarily to find the most efficient and effective way to implement policy. The Wilsonian approach, however, has failed to adapt to increasing affluence and with increasingly volatile and complex systems. Moreover the inability or unwillingness of ‘principal agents’ to give c