PPP Frameworks For Infrastructure Development

Introduction

There has been a significant emphasis and focus on infrastructure development in the country in recent years. Allocated budget from the state has consistently increased; unlike the earlier decades, infrastructure development is not concentrated in specific regions or states, but across the country, and remote regions which posed huge technological challenge for construction. Also, the country is not shy anymore to plan and build modern and futuristic infrastructure. Of course, much of these developments involve local and global private players, their investments, innovative partnership models and sharing of risks.

Ministries such as Indian Railways, which are normally conservative have innovatively developed tight partnership with global organizations in the manufacturing space. State initiatives such as Atmanirbhar Bharat, Make-in-India, Digital India, Startup India have positively contributed to the infrastructure development. Yet in several sectors, there are limitations in designing Public Private Partnership (PPP) policies; the progress would possibly be very rapid, and impact would be meaningful, if these challenges are overcome.

In this programme we lay out the basis for interventions by central and state governments, and of participation of the private sector, and discuss the barriers to an effective PPP model. We also discuss using a few actual PPP developments, what has worked and what has not, in a particular setting. The programme intends to cover internal and external risks, contractual obligations, compliance measures, financial and regulatory agreements in different sectors.

The fundamental theme of the programme is to understand the dependency between the regulatory and enforcement clauses with the larger project scope. Few sessions will also cover International PPP models, largely, in an attempt to draw parallels with Indian PPPs. Participants are encouraged to bring details of any live cases involving regulatory and other challenges in the PPP framework, which can be discussed. The programme would benefit business consultants, regulatory agencies, bureaucrats, funding agencies, entrepreneurs to gain a better understanding of public-private partnership designs, policy and compliance frameworks.