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31 July 2017
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The government needs to adopt the model of build, operate and transfer (BOT) for infrastructure projects. These projects then should be given to private companies as the government is incapable of handling the maintenance and operations of such projects, Niti Aayog chief Amitabh Kant said.
Apart from existing developmental projects, Kant said that the centre should let private sector take charge of schools, airport, jails and colleges too. Even running trains should be handed over to the private companies and government should limit its role to planning and development, he added.
Kant cited examples of dirty bathrooms at airports, which fall under the Airport Authority of India (AAI) and said: “We must bring in the private sector… and bring private sector money back in infrastructure. These projects are fully de-risked.”
India needs to move into new areas of public private partnership (PPP). “At least experience of many countries like Canada and Australia shows that private sector is capable of doing very good work in creation of quality infrastructure over a long period of time in social sector,” Kant said.
Kant also said that there were huge opportunities for the private sector in India like station re-development projects, port construction and Sagarmala projects.
There is no shortage of money in the market and India can use the opportunity by de-listing its projects, he said.
“Need of the hour is to market these projects well,” he said, adding that even the freight corridor being built should be privatised.
Blaming the private sector for the current crisis in PPP investment in India, he said, there are hundreds of examples where private sector has gone for aggressive bidding and didn’t bother to do due-diligence as a result of which the PPP mode has got a setback.
“Private sector has performed very badly… Private sector in India is most irrational, insensitive I have seen,” Kant said citing the example of aggressive bidding in highways and coal sectors.
He said it is high time that the private sector understood that in the long run it causes pain to itself and the economy. The bidding should be made at a rational basis.
Source-moneycontrol
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