New Delhi: Public Private Partnership (PPP) model represents a valuable instrument that stimulates infrastructure development in the country. India has witnessed considerable growth in PPPs in the last decade and emerged as one of the leading PPP markets in the world.
In view of this, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) organized the fifth edition of the India PPP Summit on 26th July 2017 at Federation House, New Delhi. Shri Nitin Jairam Gadkari, Hon’ble Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, Government of India was the Guest of Honor and gave the Inaugural address in the summit.
The summit aimed at presenting the Report Card for PPP Projects and providing an opportunity to rebuild the trust deficit amongst the stakeholders. The summit discussed critical issues on existing policy framework and regulations concerning PPPs, fostering partnerships to invigorate PPPs and innovative financing solutions. It also provided an opportunity to elicit stakeholders’ views on facilitating an enabling environment for scaling up PPPs in the country.
The key highlights of this edition was as under:-
- The India PPP Summit 2017 brought together senior government officials, private sector players from India and concerned stakeholders to enable result-oriented brainstorming, insights & industry trends during the interactive sessions.
- The Summit was an overwhelming success which attracted over 250 representatives from India and overseas.
- The Summit was instrumental in highlighting the PPP investment opportunities in Indian Transport Infrastructure sector and enhancing cooperation in transformation of the sector.
- On the occasion, Hon’ble Minister released the FICCI-EY Knowledge Paper titled, ‘Revival of PPP Momentum in the transport sector’.
Shri Nitin Jairam Gadakari, Hon’ble Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping emphasized on the importance of Public private partnership (PPP) and said, “it is the need of the hour given the budgetary constraints of the government and that it was imperative that the stakeholders including the government, private sector, investors and banks work in tandem to weed out the obstacles and create a Model Concession Agreement (MCA) which accounts for all the risks, issues and spells out a framework for effective implementation of a PPP.”
“The public transport running on biofuel and electricity was the focus of the government as it would be environment friendly and cost effective. He further added that bus ports are on the anvil, which would be on the lines of airports offering world-class amenities.”, he added.
Alluding to the development of inland waterways, the minister said that work has begun towards developing inland waterways in Ganga and Brahmaputra Rivers that would bring down logistics cost drastically and reduce the time of transportation of goods.
In his Special Address, Mr. Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Ayog said that there was a need to bid out PPP projects only after all requisite approvals such land acquisition and environment clearances are placed in SPV to develop world-class infrastructure. Also, a dedicated machinery should develop de-risk projects. He urged the private sector to bid on a project only after due diligence with a rational approach. Besides, new areas of PPP such as social sectors should be explored.
He further added that there is a huge opportunity for private sector and the government should market the projects well for attracting private sector investments.
Mr. Junaid Kamal Ahmad India Country Director, South Asia, The World Bank said that there is a need to incentivize states to manage PPPs and corporatize agencies that could be held accountable by the capital market. He added that The World Bank’s priority is to engage with the government, private sector and civil society.
Mr. K Ramchand, Managing Director, IL&FS said that NITI Aayog is currently in the process of preparing a list of 10 big infrastructure projects across sectors that can be developed under the PPP mode and is also working on the flexible structuring of PPP projects. He added that new measures such as the Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM), Toll-Operate-Transfer (TOT) model and improved land acquisition process among other initiatives will drive the required private sector participation.
The complete post conference coverage of the 5th edition of PPP Summit 2017 has been published in Metro Rail News Magazine August Edition.
