<p>The livelihood of the community residing at the Eastern Chhotonagpur Plateau fringe was closely tied with the natural environment, and they were heavily dependent on ecosystem services. Wetlands provided indispensable services for local ecosystems and economies in this semi-arid terrain. The main aim of this study was to assess the perceived importance and perception of performance by the community about ecosystem services provided by the six dams constructed on the Kumari River system. The field-based Rapid Assessment of Wetland Ecosystem Services (RAWES) and Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) techniques were used, and questionnaire surveys were conducted across 451 households in 17 villages near the dams. The calculated Ecosystem Service Index showed Kangsabati Dam provided the highest degree of ecosystem services, while Chaka Dam provided the least. Based on community perception, ecosystem services were categorized into four groups. High important and high-performance services were placed into Quadrant I, low important and high-performance services were clustered in Quadrant II, low important and low-performance services were grouped in Quadrant III, and Quadrant IV was reserved for the services of high important and low performance. The ecosystem services that showed significant discrepancy between perceived importance and performance were grouped into various prioritization levels for improvements needed based on calculated improvement index value. The findings of the study guide policy makers for management of the ecosystem and emphasize the implementation of integrated ecosystem-based management (EBM) for ecological balance and socio-economic well-being of the region.</p>