Governance issues in public private partnership in infrastructure projects in India

Abstract

A major area of concern for sustaining the real gross domestic product (GDP) growth in India has been lack of adequate infrastructure, which can support the growth process. It is generally well accepted that Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are useful and essential mode of infrastructure delivery, hence the Government of India has taken an affirmative stance and has highlighted relevance of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in this context and several initiatives have been taken to accelerate the pace of project implementation and attract capital from private party. Generally, there are number of reasons for success and failure of PPP projects. The ability to structure projects to mitigate risks and gain stakeholders acceptability and the ability to monitor the project and steer it through turbulences that it might encounter over the lifecycle are key elements of successful programme. The ability to structure projects and risk management of the projects are well understood across the PPP practitioners, however governance remains a key area that are less understood particularly in developing country context. In the above backdrop, the dissertation is organized into six chapters. Chapter 1 gives about general overview of PPP project and background of research. Chapter 2 takes a note of the available literature on the subject. Chapter 3 discussed about the methodologies adopted in conducting the research. In Chapter 4, five parameters of governance namely Financial Analysis, Conflict of interests, contract design and fairness, stakeholder s management and institutional and regulatory framework have been defined and various sub parameters of these parameters have been discussed in detail. Chapter 5 pertains to in depth case studies analysis of two road sector projects namely Noida Toll Bridge and Gurgaon Expressway on five defined governance parameters. Finally, in Chapter 6, findings from case study analysis have been given and based on this and interviews with different stakeholders, some concluding observations and policy recommendations have been made. This chapter has also discussed about the limitations of study and scope for future studies in governance area. This dissertation presents insights from case studies of PPP projects that have faced governance challenges and some insights from PPP practitioners who are having rich experience of handling PPP projects. This attempts to partially fill this gap by identifying parameters and strategies for good governance which can be incorporated in conceptualization and project development and contract design stage itself and lead to the creation of governable projects. The data used are restricted to Indian context.